In order to drive a vehicle on public roads one needs to have a driver's license as issued by the respective State and depending upon the State, there are requirements for a front and back license plate, or just one or the other. Besides a license plate which is an easy way to identify the owner of the vehicle, each vehicle is issued a unique 17-digit Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) which is used for registration, insurance, and for tracking of vehicles, of which, this VIN# is attached to all paperwork and is identified on the dashboard of the car, as well as various other spots. Because the VIN# is absolutely unique to each vehicle, as opposed to license plates, which though unique, can be transferred from one vehicle to another, the VIN# has special value attached to it, and while law enforcement cars as well as traffic cameras at lights, have the capability of tracking a vehicle via the reading of a license plate number, in an era in which the sky literally is the limit, there are advantages to being able to read one's VIN# from the air, as opposed to picking up a license plate number from behind or just in front of a given vehicle.
Currently, private citizen cars have no identification on their vehicle rooftop, whereas buses and law enforcement vehicles, typically do have such identification, making it easy for aerial devices to pick up their identification numbers, which thereby makes it straightforward to not only identify who, what, and where the vehicle is, but also allows that vehicle to be readily track. Today, there are numerous cameras attached to light poles, or rooftops, or traffic lights that already are setup to record or take pictures of vehicles, but could be re-configured for aerial surveillance of a vehicle's rooftop as compared to angling itself correctly to pick up a license plate, and though there are helicopters that ply our skies, helicopters are expensive to own and operate, not to mention the fact that helicopters are relatively easy for the naked eye to spot. On other hand, drones are getting more and more sophisticated by the minute, their price point to run them is trending lower and lower, and the visibility of drones can be masked by their physical look, for instance, as appearing to be a bird in the air, or by their height up in the air, which makes it virtually impossible for the naked eye to even know that they are up there in the sky. The advantage of law enforcement using drones up in the air, is they are far less intrusive, than police cars or helicopters, and the drones are quite good at collecting information, in which, law enforcement agencies would welcome the capability of tracking vehicles on public roads, which would be easily identified by their VIN# or its equivalency in code written in a certain specified spot on vehicle roofs. For instance, the VIN# could be designed to utilize a certain ink or imprint that is relatively invisible to the naked eye, but quite visible to cameras that are design to read such.
All of the above, would help law enforcement to more easily track vehicles that traverse our public roads so as to reduce crime and to protect the general public, for as most people are intuitively aware of, individuals have no right of privacy in public, in addition to the fact that cars are things, and things that are out in public, though they may be privately owned, when driven out into the public sphere, they now become fair play to be legally monitored, tracked, and observed. Will having VIN# on the roof be de rigueur in America? It would appear to be an idea whose time has come, as it will be legal, relatively easy to implement, and another arrow in the arsenal of those that support our basic police state.