Imagine buying a used car in Oklahoma from a private seller, or perhaps you were cut down by a random driver driving recklessly on the road. All you can see is the vehicle's license plate, and you might be interested in knowing about the vehicle's history if you're planning to buy it or the owner's details.
You don't necessarily need the VIN of the vehicle to run the search and searching by the vehicle tag number is possible. There are a few ways to search a license plate in 'The sooner state', but there might be some limitations as to what data you can view (more on that below).
There are broadly two ways to search for a license plate. Actually, three if you want to engage a Private Investigator (PI), but that might cost you a lot.
1) Using our license plate search tool or any third-party service
You can search for any Oklahoma-registered license plate for free on our website. Just enter the license plate you're looking to search above, select the state as Oklahoma, and hit the search button. On the next page, you can view vehicle history, vehicle specs, reported accidents, salvage records, service history and recall records. Additionally, you can also request ownership data from our third-party data provider (fee applicable).
Our service might be similar to many third-party lookup services, but our free search is where we stand apart. Our free reports are comprehensive and quite detailed, unlike most third-party services.
2) Going the traditional way - Oklahoma Department of Public Safety.
The OK Department of Public Safety maintains the MVR (Motor Vehicle Records) of all the registered vehicles in the state. However, the MVR data can only be accessed by authorized individuals (law enforcement, towing companies, insurance etc.) or released for a permissible cause. The federal DPPA (Driver's Privacy Protection Act) lists the rules for releasing such data. You can read more about the eligibility criteria and access the DPPA form here.
A standard Oklahoma license plate features a white scissor-tailed flycatcher against the blue mountains. The state name, "OKLAHOMA", is printed across the top of the plate and the bottom of the plate reads "TRAVELOK.COM". The plate number is embossed in black in the center, and the validation stickers are placed on the top right.
The license plate is made out of aluminium and measures 6 inches by 12 inches.
A license serial number is a unique 6-character long, alphanumeric identifier assigned to each vehicle. The license serial number follows ABC-123 format unless it's a vanity plate. The Oklahoma Tax Commission introduced the current series on Jan 1, 2017.
Oklahoma boasts over 300 license plate designs, making it tricky to identify if the plate is from Oklahoma.
Standard Plates: These are the general issue plates that are most commonly seen on the roads. They feature the scissor-tailed flycatcher against the blue mountains.
Specialty Plates: These are plates that support a specific cause, college, profession or organization. Some specialty plates may have their eligibility requirement and cost considerably more than the standard plates.
Specialty plate options:
Military Plates
Education Plates
Tribal Plates
Civil Service Plates
Special Interests Plates
Personalized Plates: Basically, you can choose the license registration number to your liking as long as it meets the DMV and state rules and regulations. Both standard and specialty plates can be personalized.
We encourage our users to flag bad drivers on the road by leaving incident information and uploading relevant pictures and videos. While doing this doesn't give you access to the ownership data of the vehicle, but it leaves an online record against the plate, which may help others stay safe on the road and potential buyers (in case the person decides to sell the vehicle).
Jason Arthur is a data junkie, writer, veteran amateur racecar driver and motorsport photographer. He is the co-founder of LookupaPlate, a collaborative platform to report bad drivers plying on American roads. He is also building a blockchain-based vehicle data marketplace (in stealth mode) and is an adviser to several startups.
Jason has been tracking the automotive industry since the 1990s and has a disturbingly deep obsession with the automotive world, and loves to explore whatever roads he can find. From high-speed racing on the circuit to off-road exploration, Jason has an insatiable appetite for adventure. Jason has written for numerous publications, including Autocar Magazine, Motorsport Magazine, and Road & Track.