DETAILED DESCRIPTION The present invention relates to an electronic vehicle indication system that allows the status of a motor vehicle operator's vehicle insurance to be checked visually by law enforcement officials without stopping the vehicle.
The electronic vehicle visual indication system is adapted to be enabled by machine readable code, such as a bar code on a substrate, smart card, magnetic card or various types of electronic or optical media, hereinafter "validation card".
The validation card is adapted to be validated by an insurance agent, which indicates the period of valid motor vehicle insurance coverage and correlates it with a vehicle identification number (VIN).
The validation card is then swiped or otherwise used to enable a reader, which may be a machine readable code reader, such as a bar code reader, smart card reader, magnetic card reader, optical reader or the like.
Such smart card readers are commonly known in the art.
An example of a smart card reader is disclosed in U.
S.
Pat.
Nos.
5,624,316 and 6,101,477.
Magnetic card readers are also commonly known in the art.
Examples of such magnetic card readers are disclosed in U.
S.
Pat.
Nos.
6,089,881; 6,082,617 and 6,076,739.
U.
S.
Pat.
No.
4,650,978 describes a magnetic programmer for programming magnetic stripes on media.
Examples of optical readers are disclosed in U.
S.
Pat.
Nos.
4,721,849, 4,801,789 and 6,290,133.
U.
S.
Pat.
No.
5,949,042 discloses a system for reading machine readable code, such as a bar code while U.
S.
Pat.
Nos.
5,564,841; 5,768,991; 5,781,708; 5,857,789; 5,984,193; 6,199,765 and 6,283,647 disclose a system for printing machine readable code.
The electronic vehicle indicator system can optionally be provided with an external port, for example, a serial port, which can be, used by law enforcement officials during traffic stops.
As will be discussed in more detail below, the external port allows the law enforcement official to plug into the port to read the history data from the vehicle electronic indication system
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Navigation and GPS 
