With my bad eyes (progressive bifocals don't work well when you are trying to read something that low to the ground), I prefer to access the manual. But, while containing a lot of other dimensional information on the car, there is nada there on how much the car weighs.
The reason I needed that particular figure was to complete the application for my disabled veteran's plates here in The Home Of The Free And The Brave®. (It is apparently on the application to prevent the registration of commercial vehicles as a disabled veteran's primary means of transportation (and thus depriving the state of much needed commercial vehicle taxes).
For some reason, the toll road authorities here have decided to waive all road tolls (and bridge and tunnel tolls) for disabled veterans (or, at least those of us who are more than 50% disabled). Completing the application was a bit of a hassle, as you need not only the VIN but also the title document number (and the vehicle's gross weight), as well as a signed verification document from the Department of Veteran's Affairs attesting to your disability.
Getting all of this on the right piece of paper at the same time was an ordeal. But, As I already was at the DVA for something else, it was just a matter of chasing down the right people at the right time.
Here in Texas the plates used to stay with the car into perpetuity. No longer, so as each set of plates becomes obsolete (by sale or scrapping of the car, for example), you now keep the old ones. As we have sold, donated or otherwise moved five vehicles over the past several years, I now have a small stack of old plates to cut up (with the seldom-used aviation metal shears) and thrown away. Identity theft of all kinds is a big concern here, and I'm not about to start tossing away intact license numbers for someone to copy down and use for God knows what.
One additional benefit of all of this is that we get to lose the stupid license plate designs that have become the norm here over the past few years.
We currently have the "Third grade art contest" design, with just about every element of perceived Texian history included in an art mish-mash. You've got your space shuttle, your Balcones Heights (a picturesque series of escarpments in central Texas), a cowboy, some tumbleweeds (which are neither particularly a Texas phenomenon, being a northern US import (and even there being an imported species from Russia)), oil derricks of a type that haven't been seen here in many, many years, and a longhorn or two, all crammed into the margins of a very limited canvas.
The new apparent heir to these is the "waving flag and over-colorful plate that has started to crop up on Texas highways. Not much better, if certainly more colorful.
WIth the "DV" plates that are issued to disabled veterans, you get the basic, stark, black on white Texas plate. Plain, simple, and good enough for me...
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