vehicles 0.6.1 → 0.8.0

data/data/plates/us-wi.yml

@@ -0,0 +1,509 @@
+# plates/us-wi.yml — Wisconsin (PRD-PLATES gate L2, group midwest-a).
+#
+# WISCONSIN IS THE STATE THAT LEGISLATES THE SHEETING. Wis. Stat. 341.12(4)(am)
+# is the single most renderable, most citable piece of US plate law found in
+# this whole group, and it carries a date in terms:
+#
+#   'Beginning with registrations initially effective July 1, 2022, all
+#    registration plates issued by the department shall be constructed with
+#    aluminum plates tempered to a hardness and thickness of approximately 0.027
+#    inches and prismatic sheeting with embedded security features. Registration
+#    plate sheeting shall be of a type successfully used by the manufacturer in
+#    multiple jurisdictions and shall have an initial minimum coefficient of
+#    reflectivity of 150 candelas per lux per square meter and an initial minimum
+#    luminance factor greater than 55.'
+#
+# Compare AAMVA Ed.3 §3.3, which asks for a minimum of 45 cd/lx/m². Wisconsin
+# legislated more than THREE TIMES the recommendation, plus a material, a
+# thickness and a security requirement — and gave the whole thing a statutory
+# commencement date, which is the rarest thing in this dataset. This is the
+# US answer to Spain's Anexo XVIII: a real, quotable, public-domain material
+# spec, and it is why `period_evidence: statutory-date` appears in this file and
+# nowhere else in midwest-a.
+#
+# WISCONSIN'S SECOND ODDITY IS WHO MAKES THE PLATES. Wis. Stat. 341.12(2): 'The
+# department shall purchase plates from the Waupun Correctional Institution
+# unless otherwise approved by the governor.' Plate manufacture by prison labour
+# is folklore in most states and STATUTE in this one — the Texas Wynne Unit
+# claim recorded in the US dossier is its unsourced cousin.
+#
+# FETCH-PROVENANCE NOTE: docs.legis.wisconsin.gov and legis.wisconsin.gov both
+# failed DNS resolution from this environment, and wisconsindot.gov likewise.
+# Statutory text below was read from codes.findlaw.com, a third-party
+# REPRODUCTION of the same edict; the canonical docs.legis.wisconsin.gov
+# citation accompanies each source line and was NOT fetched.
+#
+# NOT HERE, DELIBERATELY: individual special-plate DESIGNS (L4 per PRD-PLATES
+# §2.5); the personalized series and Wisconsin's 'official' state plate series,
+# both outside the L2 core-class list — the statutory personalized position
+# limits are recorded instead inside the standard series' charset notes, where
+# they bound the plate's capacity.
+jurisdiction: us-wi
+authority:
+  name: Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Division of Motor Vehicles (WisDOT DMV)
+  url: "https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/dmv/vehicles/title-plates/default.aspx"
+binding: vehicle
+statute_edition: "Wisconsin Statutes Chapter 341 (Registration of Vehicles), as reproduced by codes.findlaw.com and read 2026-08-02. FindLaw warns its text 'may not reflect the most recent version of the law'; currency is UNVERIFIED. The 341.12(4)(am) text read here includes the July 2022 commencement, so the reproduction is at least that recent."
+
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# artwork_risk — required per jurisdiction by PRD-PLATES §4.
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+artwork_risk:
+  posture: unresearched-default-adverse
+  basis: >-
+    No favourable Wisconsin authority was located. The governing default is that
+    17 U.S.C. §105 does not extend to the states, so a state work is copyrighted
+    unless the state says otherwise. Both surveys checked are silent on
+    Wisconsin: the Wikipedia survey of subnational copyright status covers
+    seventeen states and Wisconsin is NOT among them, and Commons'
+    copyright-rules-by-territory page for the United States enumerates the state
+    PD tags that exist — CA, FL, GA, MA, ME plus narrow agency tags for MN, OK,
+    WA and one Alabama municipality — with no {{PD-WIGov}}. No Wisconsin statute,
+    AG opinion or case establishing public-domain status for state works was
+    found. TREAT THE ARTWORK AS COPYRIGHTED.
+    WHAT IS SAFE REGARDLESS, AND IN WISCONSIN THIS IS UNUSUALLY MUCH: the entire
+    341.12(4)(am) material specification — aluminium, 0.027 inch, prismatic
+    sheeting, 150 cd/lx/m², luminance factor above 55 — is an EDICT OF
+    GOVERNMENT and public domain at every level, as are the plate-content rules
+    of 341.12(3) and the display rules of 341.15. Wisconsin is the strongest
+    case in this group for PRD-PLATES §4's preference for statutes over
+    brochures: the statute gives a renderable spec that no brochure would.
+  emblem_rule: >-
+    PRD-PLATES §3's placeholder default applies to the state name treatment and
+    any graphic element on the base. Render
+    `emblem: {present: true, rendered: placeholder}`. State-seal protection is
+    independent of copyright and is unresearched for Wisconsin.
+  photograph_caution: >-
+    Standing rule: a CC tag on a Commons photograph of a Wisconsin plate is the
+    PHOTOGRAPHER's licence on the PHOTOGRAPH, not on the design. Our renders are
+    generated from this file and never derived from a photograph.
+  sources:
+    - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_status_of_works_by_subnational_governments_of_the_United_States  # LOCATOR + NEGATIVE FINDING: Wisconsin is not among the states covered"
+    - "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Copyright_rules_by_territory/United_States  # the §105-does-not-reach-the-states rule and the complete state PD-tag list — no Wisconsin tag"
+    - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-12.html  # FETCHED. The material and content spec that IS available is statutory and therefore a PD edict"
+
+us_standards:
+  no_federal_mandate: true
+  chain: "SAE J686 -> AAMVA License Plate Standard Edition 3 (September 2025) -> voluntary state adoption. Recommendations in the declarative present; read as RECOMMENDED PRACTICE."
+  aamva_edition_3:
+    dimensions_delegated: "AAMVA §3.1 sends dimensions and bolt holes to SAE J686, whose text is paywalled and was NOT obtained. Wisconsin legislates a THICKNESS (approximately 0.027 in) but no length or width, so this file records the thickness from statute and no planar dimension at all."
+    character_layout: "AAMVA §2.2: characters at least 2.5 in high, spaced at least 0.25 in apart, stroke weight 0.2-0.4 in, at least 1.25 in clear of top and bottom edges"
+    jurisdiction_name_layout: "AAMVA §2.1: jurisdiction name top centre between the bolt holes, at least 0.25 in above the plate number, 0.125 in from the top edge; characters 0.75-1.0 in. Wisconsin's own rule is looser and statutory: 341.12(3)(b) requires only 'the name \"Wisconsin\" or abbreviation \"Wis\"' somewhere on the plate — and the motorcycle series duly uses the abbreviation."
+    stacked_characters: "AAMVA: 'If stacked characters are used, they are part of the official license plate number. No more than two characters are to be stacked.' LOAD-BEARING HERE — it is the basis for reading collector notation 'M/V' and 'Z/A' as stacked pairs MV and ZA rather than as slash-separated tokens."
+    retroreflectivity: "AAMVA §3.3 asks for a minimum 45 cd/lx/m². WISCONSIN LEGISLATED 150 — see `material_spec` below. A state exceeding the voluntary standard by more than threefold, in statute, is the strongest available refutation of the idea that AAMVA is a ceiling."
+    replacement_cycle: "AAMVA §1.1 recommends 7-10 years. Wisconsin legislates no replacement cycle; 341.12(4)(a) says only that 'The department shall prescribe the term for the use of reflectorized plates' — delegation, not a schedule. Recorded gap."
+    source: "https://www.aamva.org/getmedia/646bcc8a-219b-47d8-b5cd-726240473163/License-Plate-Standard-Edition-3_September-2025-Update.pdf"
+  folklore_caution: >-
+    The "1956 AMA standardization agreement" is UNCITED in its Wikipedia source
+    and is not relied on. Wisconsin needs it least of all five states: it has a
+    statutory thickness and a statutory reflectivity floor, so this file records
+    material facts from law and simply leaves the planar dimension blank.
+
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# material_spec — Wisconsin's signature fact, recorded once at file level
+# because 341.12(4)(am) applies to ALL plates the department issues.
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+material_spec:
+  effective: 2022
+  effective_basis: "statutory commencement — 'Beginning with registrations initially effective July 1, 2022'"
+  substrate: "aluminium, tempered to a hardness and thickness of approximately 0.027 inches"
+  sheeting: "prismatic sheeting with embedded security features, 'of a type successfully used by the manufacturer in multiple jurisdictions'"
+  reflectivity_min: "150 candelas per lux per square metre, initial minimum coefficient"
+  luminance_factor_min: "greater than 55, initial minimum"
+  scope: "ALL registration plates issued by the department, not merely passenger plates — the paragraph is unqualified, which is why it sits at file level rather than on one series"
+  earlier_rule: "341.12(4)(a): plates issued under s. 341.25(1)(a) and for motor trucks of gross weight not more than 8,000 pounds 'shall be treated with a reflectorized material or substance', with the department prescribing the term of use — i.e. before 2022 the reflectorization duty was class-limited and unquantified"
+  procurement: "341.12(4)(b): the department, with the department of corrections and the department of administration, establishes the specifications, invites bids and awards to the lowest responsible bidder, and 'The specifications shall be drawn up for each base plate year' — Wisconsin therefore has an official, per-BASE-YEAR specification document series. Locating it would convert much of this file from secondary to primary; it was not found in this pass and is the highest-value follow-up for this state."
+  manufacture: "341.12(2): 'The department shall purchase plates from the Waupun Correctional Institution unless otherwise approved by the governor.'"
+  source: "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-12.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.12: (1) plate counts by vehicle type; (2) Waupun manufacture and the department's design discretion; (3) mandatory plate contents; (4)(a) the earlier reflectorization rule; (4)(am) the July 2022 aluminium/prismatic/150 cd-lx-m2 specification; (4)(b) the per-base-year specification and bidding process"
+
+display_rules:
+  default: "TWO PLATES, FRONT AND REAR, for the principal vehicle classes. Wis. Stat. 341.12(1) issues 'to the applicant 2 registration plates for an automobile, motor truck, motor bus, school bus, motor home, or dual purpose motor home and one plate for other vehicles'; 341.15 then places them: 'Whenever 2 registration plates are issued for a vehicle, one plate shall be attached to the front and one to the rear of the vehicle.'"
+  single_plate_placement: "341.15: where only one plate is issued, TRUCKS attach it to the FRONT and other vehicles to the rear, with municipal exceptions. Wisconsin thus reaches the same truck-forward outcome as Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana by a different route — through a general truck rule rather than a truck-tractor exception."
+  law_enforcement_discretion: "341.12(1): for vehicles registered under sections other than 341.25/341.30 the department issues one plate 'unless the department determines that 2 plates will better serve the interests of law enforcement' — an explicitly discretionary plate COUNT, which is unusual and means the count is not a fixed property of a class"
+  mounting: "341.15: 'Registration plates shall be attached firmly and rigidly in a horizontal position and conspicuous place. The plates shall at all times be maintained in a legible condition and shall be so displayed that they can be readily and distinctly seen and read.' Note Wisconsin states NO mounting height and NO legibility distance — contrast Illinois's 5 inches / 100 feet and Michigan's 12 inches / 100 feet."
+  sources:
+    - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-15.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.15: front-and-rear display for two-plate vehicles, front placement for single-plate trucks, firm and rigid horizontal attachment, legibility"
+    - "https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/341/II/15  # CANONICAL citation for the same edict — NOT fetched (DNS resolution failed for the host)"
+    - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-12.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.12(1): which vehicle classes receive two plates and which receive one, and the law-enforcement discretion"
+    - "https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/341/II/12  # CANONICAL, not fetched"
+
+series:
+
+  - id: us-wi-standard-2017
+    class: standard
+    categories: [car, van, truck, bus]
+    period: { start: 2017 }
+    period_evidence: secondary-first-issue
+    matching: strict
+    format:
+      pattern: "LLL-9999"
+      regex: '\A[A-Z]{3}[- ]?\d{4}\z'
+      regex_statutory: '\A[A-Z0-9](?:[- ]?[A-Z0-9])*\z'
+      evidence: secondary
+      charset:
+        notes: >-
+          Three letters, a printed hyphen, four numerals. THE STATUTORY BOUND IS
+          REAL BUT WEAK, and it is recorded as `regex_statutory` because weak is
+          not the same as absent: Wis. Stat. 341.12(3)(a) requires the plate to
+          display 'The registration number assigned to the vehicle or owner. The
+          registration number shall be composed of numbers or letters or both.'
+          That is an ALPHABET claim with no width and no arrangement — so the
+          statutory twin admits any alphanumeric string with optional group
+          separators, and says only what Wisconsin law actually says: no
+          punctuation inside a serial, ever. The width evidence comes from
+          elsewhere in the statutes: Wis. Stat. 341.145 caps a personalized
+          combination on a standard plate at 'not exceeding 7 positions and not
+          less than one position' (5 for motorcycles, 6 for certain veteran and
+          conservation plates, 5 for electric-vehicle plates), which establishes
+          the PLATE'S CAPACITY at seven and is consistent with the seven-position
+          ordinary series. That is evidence about capacity, not a grammar for
+          department-assigned serials, and it is deliberately not encoded as a
+          regex.
+        separator_note: >-
+          The hyphen is PRINTED on the Wisconsin plate, so it is spelled in both
+          the pattern and the regex per PRD-PLATES §2.6 rule 2. The regex accepts
+          either emitted separator or none — `[- ]?` — which is a sanctioned
+          separator-only class under §2.8: it contains only separator characters
+          and is not negated, so a consumer deriving the separator-free twin can
+          detect and delete the position mechanically.
+      progression: "observed AAA-1001 to BDK-2558 as of 2026-04-13 (secondary)"
+    design:
+      background: { color: "#FFFFFF", finish: retroreflective, hex_basis: observed }
+      colour_note: >-
+        Embossed black serial on a reflective white plate, with WISCONSIN
+        screened in red centred at the top. The white is hexed and marked
+        observed; the red and the black are NOT hexed. Wisconsin's statute
+        delegates colour to the department (341.12(2)) and prescribes only that
+        the plate be 'visible evidence of the period for which the vehicle is
+        registered and the fee class into which the vehicle falls' — a
+        FUNCTIONAL colour rule, like Michigan's contrast rule, which no hex can
+        express and which no photograph should be used to invent.
+      material_spec_ref: "see file-level `material_spec` — aluminium at approximately 0.027 in with prismatic sheeting at 150 cd/lx/m2 minimum applies to plates issued for registrations initially effective on or after 1 July 2022, i.e. to the later part of this series' run"
+      embossed: true
+      legend_top: "WISCONSIN"
+      legend_slogan: "America's Dairyland"
+      legend_rule: "STATUTORY MINIMUM, 341.12(3): the plate must display the registration number, 'The name \"Wisconsin\" or abbreviation \"Wis\"', and 'An indication of the period for which the specific plate is issued or the date of expiration of registration'. The slogan is departmental, not legislated."
+      graphic: { present: true, rendered: placeholder }
+      emblem: { present: true, rendered: placeholder }
+    region_encoding: "none. Wisconsin encodes no geography in the serial and prints no county legend. 341.12(2) directs the design toward identifying the REGISTRATION PERIOD and the FEE CLASS, not the place."
+    fee_class_encoding: >-
+      STATUTORY AND UNDER-EXPLOITED. 341.12(2) tells the department to design
+      plates 'with a view toward making them visible evidence of the period for
+      which the vehicle is registered and the FEE CLASS into which the vehicle
+      falls'. That is a legislature instructing its DMV to encode weight/fee
+      class in the plate's appearance — which is why Wisconsin's trailer, dealer
+      and municipal plates all carry distinguishing tokens. The decode from token
+      to fee class was NOT obtained and is a recorded gap; the statutory
+      instruction to encode it is the finding.
+    sources:
+      - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-12.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.12: (2) the department's design discretion and the period/fee-class encoding instruction, and Waupun manufacture; (3)(a) 'The registration number shall be composed of numbers or letters or both'; (3)(b) the Wisconsin/Wis name requirement; (3)(c) the period indication; (4)(am) the 2022 material spec"
+      - "https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/341/II/12  # CANONICAL, not fetched (DNS failure)"
+      - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-145.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.145: personalized combinations 'not exceeding 7 positions and not less than one position' on standard plates, 5 on motorcycle plates, 6 on certain veteran and conservation plates, 5 on electric-vehicle plates; and the department's power to refuse combinations with 'connotations offensive to good taste or decency, or which would be misleading'"
+      - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin  # LOCATOR ONLY: April 2017 to present, serial format ABC-1234, range AAA-1001 to BDK-2558 (2026-04-13), embossed black on reflective white with WISCONSIN screened in red at top, 'America's Dairyland'"
+    notes: >-
+      WISCONSIN STANDARD ISSUE, CURRENT BASE. `start: 2017` is a
+      secondary first-issue year and is flagged as such; what IS statute-grade
+      here is unusually deep for a US state — the alphabet, the mandatory plate
+      contents, the material specification with its own commencement date, the
+      manufacturer, and the instruction to encode period and fee class. The
+      series is also the only one in midwest-a carrying a `regex_statutory`,
+      because Wisconsin is the only one of the five whose legislature says
+      anything at all about what a registration number is made of.
+
+  - id: us-wi-standard-2000
+    class: standard
+    categories: [car, van, truck, bus]
+    period: { start: 2000, end: 2017 }
+    period_evidence: secondary-first-issue
+    matching: strict
+    format:
+      pattern: "999-LLL"
+      regex: '\A\d{3}[- ]?[A-Z]{3}\z'
+      regex_statutory: '\A[A-Z0-9](?:[- ]?[A-Z0-9])*\z'
+      evidence: secondary
+      charset:
+        notes: >-
+          THE MIRROR IMAGE OF THE CURRENT SERIES — same seven positions, same
+          hyphen, letters and digits SWAPPED. 123-ABC gave way to ABC-1234 in
+          April 2017, which means Wisconsin's format alone dates a plate to one
+          side of that boundary, and means a validator written for one shape
+          silently rejects seventeen years of issuance written in the other. The
+          statutory twin is unchanged because the statute is unchanged: 'composed
+          of numbers or letters or both' bounds both series identically.
+      progression: "observed 101-AAA to 999-ZZZ, i.e. the series ran to exhaustion of the three-letter suffix (secondary) — which is the ordinary reason a US format flips"
+    design:
+      background: { color: "#FFFFFF", finish: retroreflective, hex_basis: observed }
+      colour_note: "embossed black serial on white with the state name in red and the earlier graphics; no red or black hex recorded"
+      embossed: true
+      legend_top: "WISCONSIN"
+      legend_slogan: "America's Dairyland (screened in red, centred at the bottom on this base)"
+      emblem: { present: true, rendered: placeholder }
+      material_spec_ref: "plates issued under this base predate the 341.12(4)(am) aluminium/prismatic requirement, which begins with registrations initially effective 1 July 2022 — so a plate from this series lawfully in service today may be built to the OLDER, unquantified reflectorization rule of 341.12(4)(a). Old stock on the road is real, and here the statute itself proves it."
+    region_encoding: none
+    sources:
+      - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin  # LOCATOR ONLY: June 2000 to April 2017, serial format 123-ABC, range 101-AAA to 999-ZZZ, embossed black serial, red state name, 'America's Dairyland' screened in red centred at bottom"
+      - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-12.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.12(3)(a) and (4)(a): the alphabet rule and the pre-2022 reflectorization rule that governed this base"
+    notes: >-
+      ONE SERIES BACK (June 2000 to April 2017). Its value is the material
+      argument as much as the format one: because 341.12(4)(am) commences with
+      registrations initially effective 1 July 2022, a plate from this series
+      still in service is built to a DIFFERENT statutory material standard than a
+      plate issued today. Wisconsin therefore has two concurrent material regimes
+      on the road, both lawful, distinguishable by issue date and not by
+      appearance — which is precisely the kind of claim a per-series dataset can
+      hold and a single-row-per-state dataset cannot.
+
+  - id: us-wi-motorcycle-2024
+    class: motorcycle
+    categories: [motorcycle]
+    period: { start: 2024 }
+    period_evidence: secondary-first-issue
+    matching: strict
+    format:
+      pattern: "L999LL"
+      regex: '\A[A-Z]\d{3}[A-Z]{2}\z'
+      evidence: secondary
+      charset:
+        notes: >-
+          Six positions, no printed separator observed. Wis. Stat. 341.145 caps a
+          PERSONALIZED motorcycle combination at 'not exceeding 5 positions and
+          not less than one position' — one fewer than the ordinary series uses,
+          which is a real and slightly awkward fact rather than a contradiction:
+          the statute bounds owner-chosen combinations, not department-assigned
+          ones. The predecessor series (April 2003 to 2024) used AB 123, 1234 A
+          and 123 AB and is not given a series of its own here, because L2 asks
+          for one series back on the STANDARD base only.
+    design:
+      background: { finish: retroreflective }
+      legend_top: "WIS"
+      legend_rule: "STATUTORY, and this is where it earns its keep: 341.12(3)(b) requires 'The name \"Wisconsin\" or abbreviation \"Wis\"'. The motorcycle plate takes the abbreviation because the plate is too small for the name — a legislature anticipating a layout constraint, in 1957-vintage drafting style, and a directly usable render rule."
+      emblem: { present: true, rendered: placeholder }
+      material_spec_ref: "the 341.12(4)(am) aluminium/prismatic specification is unqualified as to class and therefore reaches motorcycle plates too"
+      size_note: "reduced motorcycle size; NO planar dimension recorded — Wisconsin legislates thickness only"
+    display: "ONE plate — 341.12(1) issues two plates only to automobiles, motor trucks, motor buses, school buses, motor homes and dual purpose motor homes, and 'one plate for other vehicles'"
+    region_encoding: none
+    sources:
+      - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-12.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.12(1) the one-plate rule for other vehicles; (3)(b) the 'Wisconsin' or 'Wis' requirement the motorcycle plate satisfies with the abbreviation"
+      - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-145.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.145: the 5-position cap on personalized motorcycle combinations"
+      - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin  # LOCATOR ONLY: motorcycle base from October 2024, format A123BC, state name shortened to 'WIS'; predecessor April 2003-2024 with AB 123 / 1234 A / 123 AB"
+    notes: >-
+      MOTORCYCLE, current base. The abbreviation rule is the transferable
+      finding: a statutory legend requirement written with an escape hatch for
+      small plates, which a render layer can implement directly instead of
+      guessing. Everything about the serial is secondary.
+
+  - id: us-wi-trailer
+    class: trailer
+    categories: [trailer]
+    period: { start: 2026 }
+    period_evidence: instrument-in-force-upper-bound
+    matching: strict
+    format:
+      pattern: "99999 ZA"
+      regex: '\A\d{1,5} ?ZA\z'
+      evidence: secondary-interpreted
+      charset:
+        notes: >-
+          THE STACKED-PAIR READING, stated openly as an interpretation. Collector
+          sources write this serial '12345Z/A'. The solidus is not printed on the
+          plate and is not a separator in this dataset's contract — it sits in the
+          FORGIVING set but not the EMITTED set, so the lint would reject it, and
+          correctly. Read with AAMVA Ed.3 ('If stacked characters are used, they
+          are part of the official license plate number. No more than two
+          characters are to be stacked.') the notation denotes a Z OVER an A, one
+          stacked pair, part of the serial, and it is written flat as ZA. The
+          same reading is applied to the dealer series below and to the Illinois
+          file. A verifier should confirm the stacking against a Wisconsin source
+          before it propagates further; if the reading is wrong, the fix is to
+          delete the token, NOT to emit a slash, because §2.6 rule 3 makes a
+          serial-internal glyph a schema amendment rather than a data entry.
+          The digit group is VARIABLE-LENGTH (observed 1001Z/A to 15522Z/A),
+          hence the quantifier.
+      progression: "observed 1001Z/A to 15522Z/A as of 2024-03-07 (secondary)"
+    design:
+      background: { finish: retroreflective }
+      emblem: { present: true, rendered: placeholder }
+      stacked_characters: { present: true, pair: "ZA", note: "interpreted per AAMVA's two-character stacking rule; unconfirmed against a Wisconsin source" }
+      weight_class_note: "Wisconsin trailer plates are reported to indicate weight classification by LETTER CODE, which is exactly what 341.12(2) instructs the department to do — make the plate 'visible evidence of... the fee class into which the vehicle falls'. The statutory instruction and the observed practice corroborate each other; the code-to-class table itself is a recorded gap."
+    display: "ONE plate — a trailer is one of 341.12(1)'s 'other vehicles'"
+    region_encoding: none
+    sources:
+      - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-12.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.12(1) one plate for other vehicles; (2) the fee-class encoding instruction the letter codes implement"
+      - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin  # LOCATOR ONLY: light trailer format 12345Z/A, range 1001Z/A to 15522Z/A (2024-03-07), weight classifications indicated by letter codes"
+      - "https://www.aamva.org/getmedia/646bcc8a-219b-47d8-b5cd-726240473163/License-Plate-Standard-Edition-3_September-2025-Update.pdf  # the stacked-character rule the ZA reading rests on"
+    notes: >-
+      TRAILER. `period.start` is an instrument-in-force upper bound; no source
+      dated the series. This is the entry where Wisconsin's statutory
+      fee-class-encoding instruction and the observed letter codes meet, which is
+      a rare case in this group of a design fact being predicted by law rather
+      than merely observed.
+
+  - id: us-wi-dealer-2018
+    class: dealer
+    categories: [car, van, truck, bus, motorcycle, trailer]
+    period: { start: 2018 }
+    period_evidence: secondary-first-issue
+    matching: strict
+    format:
+      pattern: "MV 9999L"
+      regex: '\A(?:MV|RV|TL|WT) ?\d{4}[A-Z]\z'
+      evidence: secondary-interpreted
+      charset:
+        notes: >-
+          FOUR PREFIX TOKENS, ONE GRAMMAR. Collector notation writes them M/V
+          (motor vehicle dealer), R/V, T/L and W/T; each is read here as a
+          STACKED PAIR written flat, on the same AAMVA basis as the trailer
+          series. The regex enumerates the four tokens rather than admitting any
+          two letters, because the tokens are the CLASS SIGNAL — an unbounded
+          `[A-Z]{2}` prefix would claim Wisconsin issues dealer plates it does
+          not. This is still `matching: strict`: the union is the dealer class's
+          own grammar, not a deliberately over-broad catch-all, so a match is a
+          real well-formedness claim for the class.
+      progression: "the predecessor series (2011-2018) used M/V 1234 without the trailing letter; the letter suffix arrives with the 2018 base (secondary)"
+    design:
+      background: { finish: retroreflective }
+      emblem: { present: true, rendered: placeholder }
+      stacked_characters: { present: true, note: "MV / RV / TL / WT interpreted as stacked pairs per AAMVA; unconfirmed" }
+    binding: business
+    plate_count: "TWO. Wis. Stat. 341.51: on registering a dealer, distributor, manufacturer or transporter the department 'shall issue 2 registration plates', with additional plates purchasable at $5 each and replacements at $2 per plate."
+    permitted_use: "Wis. Stat. 341.47 exempts a dealer's, distributor's or manufacturer's vehicle from ordinary registration while it displays 'valid registration plates issued under s. 341.51 to the dealer, distributor or manufacturer', for sale, transit, testing or repossession; transporters likewise."
+    region_encoding: none
+    sources:
+      - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-51.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.51: two plates issued to a dealer/distributor/manufacturer/transporter, additional plates at $5, replacements at $2; NO design or marking is specified"
+      - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-47.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.47: the registration exemption for vehicles displaying s. 341.51 plates, for sale, transit, testing or repossession"
+      - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin  # LOCATOR ONLY: dealer plates 2018-present with M/V, R/V, T/L and W/T prefixes in the form M/V 1234A; predecessor 2011-2018 M/V 1234"
+    notes: >-
+      DEALER. `binding: business` — 341.47 attaches the exemption to the
+      dealership's plates, not to any vehicle. Two statutory facts sharpen the
+      class: the plate COUNT is two, not one, and the statute that issues them
+      (341.51) says nothing whatever about how they look, which is why the format
+      here is entirely secondary while the count and the permitted use are
+      primary. That split — sourced administration, unsourced appearance — is the
+      normal shape of US plate law and is worth internalising.
+
+  - id: us-wi-temporary-2020
+    class: temporary
+    categories: [car, van, truck, bus, motorcycle, trailer]
+    period: { start: 2020 }
+    period_evidence: secondary-first-issue
+    matching: strict
+    format:
+      pattern: "L9999L"
+      regex: '\A[A-Z]\d{4}[A-Z]E?\z'
+      evidence: secondary
+      charset:
+        notes: >-
+          Six positions, with a reported seventh-position E variant (A1234BE)
+          whose meaning was not established — most plausibly an extension or
+          electronic-issue marker, but that is a guess and is recorded as one.
+          The optional E is spelled in the regex so the twin shape validates; it
+          is not spelled in the pattern, because the pattern shows the CANONICAL
+          printed form. The predecessor series (2004-2019) printed A12 34B, i.e.
+          the same six characters with a space after the third — another
+          Illinois-style regrouping, and another argument for the separator
+          contract.
+      progression: "predecessor observed A10 01A to P24 66U as of 2018-08-07 (secondary)"
+    design:
+      material: "white paper plate with the serial in white inside a black box (secondary)"
+      background: { finish: none }
+      emblem: { present: false }
+    region_encoding: none
+    sources:
+      - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin  # LOCATOR ONLY, and the sole source for this format: temporary plates 2020-present in the forms A1234B and A1234BE, white serial in a black box on a white paper plate; predecessor 2004-2019 A12 34B with range A10 01A to P24 66U (2018-08-07)"
+      - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-12.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.12(3)(a)'s alphabet rule is the only statutory constraint that reaches a temporary plate's serial"
+    notes: >-
+      TEMPORARY. The weakest-sourced series in this file — no Wisconsin statute
+      section governing temporary plate form was located, so unlike Ohio (seven
+      characters, forty-five days, by statute) and Michigan (thirty days,
+      serially numbered, destroy on receipt, by statute) there is no primary
+      here at all. Carried with the flag rather than omitted, because temporary
+      plates are inside the L2 core-class list and a declared weak series is more
+      useful to a verifier than a silent absence.
+
+  - id: us-wi-municipal-2019
+    class: government
+    categories: [car, van, truck, bus]
+    period: { start: 2019 }
+    period_evidence: secondary-first-issue
+    matching: strict
+    format:
+      pattern: "C99999"
+      regex: '\AC\d{5}\z'
+      evidence: secondary
+      charset: { notes: "a single-letter class token C followed by five numerals. Wisconsin's parallel 'official' state series (all-numeric 12345, and A1234) is NOT given a series here — it is outside the L2 core-class list once the municipal series covers the government class, and its two coexisting shapes are poorly dated." }
+      progression: "observed C10001 to C27194 as of 2024-08-06 (secondary)"
+    design:
+      background: { finish: retroreflective }
+      emblem: { present: true, rendered: placeholder }
+    binding: vehicle
+    binding_note: "the plate binds to a municipally-owned VEHICLE, not to the municipality as such — which is why this is not `binding: business`"
+    fee: "Wis. Stat. 341.26: '$5 shall be paid to the department for the original issuance of a registration plate for any vehicle owned by this state or by any county or municipality or federally recognized Indian tribe or band in this state', or leased to them, 'and operated exclusively... in the public service'; $1 on reassignment to a replacement vehicle."
+    region_encoding: "none established. The C token marks the CLASS, not the municipality; no municipal decode was sourced and none is asserted."
+    sources:
+      - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-26.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.26: the $5 original issuance fee and $1 reassignment fee for state, county, municipal and federally recognised tribal vehicles operated exclusively in the public service; NO design, prefix or marking is specified"
+      - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin  # LOCATOR ONLY: municipal plates 2019-present in the form C12345, range C10001 to C27194 (2024-08-06); and the separate 'official' series 12345 / A1234 with serials 1-2 reserved for the Governor and Lieutenant Governor"
+      - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-12.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.12(1)'s law-enforcement discretion over plate count applies to vehicles registered under sections such as 341.26"
+    notes: >-
+      MUNICIPAL / PUBLIC-SERVICE. Wisconsin legislates WHO gets these plates and
+      WHAT THEY COST but nothing about how they look — the same split as the
+      dealer series. Note the statutory inclusion of federally recognised Indian
+      tribes and bands alongside the state, counties and municipalities: a
+      sovereignty distinction that most state plate law elides and that a
+      government-plate model should not flatten.
+
+  - id: us-wi-specialty-index
+    class: specialty
+    categories: [car, van, truck, motorcycle]
+    period: { start: 2026 }
+    period_evidence: instrument-in-force-upper-bound
+    matching: strict
+    format:
+      pattern: "LLL-9999"
+      regex: '\A[A-Z]{3}[- ]?\d{4}\z'
+      regex_statutory: '\A[A-Z0-9](?:[- ]?[A-Z0-9])*\z'
+      evidence: secondary
+      charset: { notes: "special group plates carry ordinary serials on an alternative design; 341.145's position caps apply where the combination is owner-chosen (6 positions on certain veteran and conservation plates, 5 on electric-vehicle plates — the statute varies the cap BY PLATE TYPE, which is unusual and is itself a modelling signal)" }
+    design:
+      background: { finish: retroreflective }
+      note: "one design per special group; the designs themselves are L4 scope (PRD-PLATES §2.5) and none is described here"
+      emblem: { present: true, rendered: placeholder }
+      design_authority: "Wis. Stat. 341.14: 'the department shall specify the design for special group plates, but the department shall consult' the relevant officials and organisations before finalising a design — so a Wisconsin special plate's design is departmental with a statutory consultation duty, not organisational"
+    program_index:
+      count_official: null
+      count_status: RECORDED-GAP
+      count_note: >-
+        No count was obtained: wisconsindot.gov failed DNS resolution from this
+        environment, and the secondary source lists Wisconsin's special plates
+        individually without stating a total. Recorded as `null` with the cause
+        stated rather than estimated from a list length, which would be a
+        fabricated aggregate.
+      official_list_url: "https://wisconsindot.gov/Pages/dmv/vehicles/title-plates/plate-choices.aspx"
+      official_list_fetch_status: "UNREACHABLE — DNS resolution failed for wisconsindot.gov, 2026-08-02"
+      statutory_basis: >-
+        Wis. Stat. 341.14 is the generic authorisation and it carries the
+        threshold: a new designated special group needs 'the signatures of at
+        least 500 residents of this state who affirm their intent to obtain
+        special plates' before production proceeds. Five hundred SIGNATURES is a
+        materially lower and differently-shaped bar than Illinois's 2,000
+        APPLICATIONS — an affirmation of intent rather than a completed
+        application — and lower again than Michigan's requirement of a public
+        act. The categories enumerated in 341.14 span disabled veterans and
+        disabled persons, amateur radio operators, collectors, antique and
+        special-interest vehicles, Congressional Medal of Honor recipients,
+        prisoners of war, National Guard members, military branches and veterans,
+        University of Wisconsin campuses, emergency medical personnel,
+        professional sports teams and numerous charitable and advocacy groups.
+    region_encoding: none
+    sources:
+      - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-14.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.14: the special-plate authorisation, the enumerated categories, the 500-signature threshold ('the signatures of at least 500 residents of this state who affirm their intent to obtain special plates'), and the department's design responsibility with its consultation duty"
+      - "https://codes.findlaw.com/wi/vehicles-ch-340-to-351/wi-st-341-145.html  # FETCHED. Wis. Stat. 341.145: the per-plate-type position caps (7 standard, 6 certain veteran/conservation, 5 motorcycle, 5 electric vehicle) and the good-taste refusal power"
+      - "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Wisconsin  # LOCATOR ONLY: the individual special plates are listed without an aggregate count"
+    notes: >-
+      THE WISCONSIN SPECIALTY PROGRAM INDEX — one entry for the whole programme per
+      PRD-PLATES §2.5, count declared as a gap, statutory mechanism recorded in
+      full because it is the durable half. Two details are worth carrying: the
+      threshold is SIGNATURES OF INTENT rather than applications, which is a
+      weaker commitment than Illinois demands and predicts a larger, churnier
+      catalogue; and 341.145 varies the personalized position cap BY PLATE TYPE,
+      which means Wisconsin's owner-chosen serial space is not one grammar but
+      four.