Yay Vermont. Green. White lettering. That’s it. I think they say “The Green Mountain State” in small letters across the bottom. That’s it. And you better not try to change it either!
I have to agree with the infamous “Famous Potatoes” thing and I am glad to see that our state offers several new choices which feature other industries and activities in Idaho such as forestry and skiing. The “FP” slogan still remains as the standard issue plate, though.
Just wondering how you Wisconsinites out there feel about being touted as “America’s Dairyland”? Are there any other agricultural-themed license plate slogans currently in use?
Tennessee has a terrible design. Six or seven differnt type fonts, at all different sizes. This is the basic plate.
Designed by the Governer’s wife, it makes us look even more like hicks than usual. :rolleyes:
The stuck-in-the-late '80s/early '90s people in Nebraska hate the new plates. They have" tequila sunrise "sort of pattern and really offend the bland and unimaginative who think that their cars , homes, and everything else should be neutral. I like the new plates, but then, I would wear my loud Hawaiian shirts year-round if it weren’t such an icebox here 6 months a year.
What I really like about the new licensing scheme is that pickup owners get the same plate design as car/SUV owners instead of those awful generic plates. I have to pay $2 extra for commercial plates and, over the past 5 years, have had to look at expensive
cheap-looking plates on my 1997 Ranger.
2 pet peeves about Nebraska licensing practices:
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Why have us change plates every 3 years? Why not have a vehicle wear the same plates issued it Day One of its Nebraska registry until the vehicle is either registered in another state or junked? Barring theft, accident damage, or loose bolts those galvanized plates, having better-quality paint jobs than many cars, could last 20 years or more.
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Why is a basic 4-cylinder small truck with a curb weight of around 2800 lbs. and a GVWR of 4200 required to have the more expensive commercial plate while owners of SUVs and extended-cab vehicles that weigh more empty than mine can safely weigh fully loaded get to have car plates?
Well, I like the Nebraska plates because only we Nebraskans know the sneaky code for figuring out the county in which the car was registered. You Florida and Ohio and Tennessee people run around with EVERYONE in the country knowing your county of residence because it’s spelled out there on the borrom.
Only Nebraskans can discern the county from the license plates of their statemates.
I mean, they can if they can remember 93 different codes. I’m good for about 5. I’d explain it to you, but then you’d have to move to Nebraska. Or be killed.
I’m aware of the hilarious NE-bashing jokes that can come from that last paragraph, so let’s just all laugh together briefly and not take the easy potshot, mmm-kay?
I like my new New York license plate (dark blue and light blue strip across the top with a silhouette of the state’s most famous features from Niagara Falls to the NYC skyline, dark blue lettering on white) much better than I liked the old one (dark blue lettering on white with a red Statue of Liberty). But if I could choose any plate in the USA, I’d love to have an Arizona one, with the magenta and teal against a desert silhouette. Every time I see one of those, I sigh.
The current Indiana plate is OK – White background with the image from the flag in gold. Letters are dark blue.
Found an image of it on the BMV page about vanity plates: http://www.in.gov/bmv/platesandtitles/plp.html
There’s also scads of Special Recognition plates: http://www.in.gov/bmv/platesandtitles/wsrec.html
as well as other programs: http://www.in.gov/bmv/platesandtitles/oplate.htm
The next plate design is pretty cool: http://www.in.gov/bmv/platesandtitles/winner.html
Found a page with a nice collection of Indiana plates:http://members.tripod.com/~scottk1/pagIndiana1976to2003.html The 1981 & 1985-1987 were the worst, IMHO.
Indiana also has the “secret code” for county identification. Used to live in 57, was in 18 for college, now in 34.
FWIW, I drive a pickup, which has the generic red on white plates with no county code.
Cranky and hannahw, you two don’t like the Michigan one with the bridge and the sunset? (I think it’s the “great lakes slendor” plate that Cranky brought up) I think it’s nice. I don’t like the blue and white ones. They’re too plain. I like colorful things. I do have to agree with you on the old automoblile one, though. It’s hideous.
I was mistaken about the Oregon plate. It is white with a green “tree” in the middle. The tree looks like a chewed piece of gum.
It’s the Washington plates that have the mountian.
Florida does have what seems like a couple dozen different plates.
I like 'em all… except for the “Choose Life” one.
It bothers me. And it’s ugly.
I can’t decide if my favorites are the dolphins, the manatee or the wildflowers.
Georgia, USA. I think it’s white, black letters with a peach in the middle. I don’t look at my tag too often though. Aha! I found a link with all the tags for the state on them…Georgia tags
I liked the Mississippi tags I had when I lived there. I had the one with the magnolia flower in the center. Much better than that Alabama “Heart of Dixie” one.
** CrankyAsAnOldMan **, Georgia and Mississippi also announce what county you live in, at least on the standard plates. I’ve never had tags that didn’t announce it. Of course, I also think it’d be amusing to have Butts county, Georgia tags on my car. Specialty tags here don’t have the state on them.
While I don’t live there anymore… there’s always South Carolina, with that funny green feather duster in the middle (or suspicous looking green spikey leaved plant, depending on how you want to look at it). “Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places” or somesuch. :rolleyes:
(And to whomever said it, back at the beginning of the thread: A-yup. Hawai’i’s plate did have King Kamehameha on it. And if you look at the new plates the right way, you can see the last two digits of the year the plate was made(?). I liked the old style better, it was more distinctive. The rainbow blends in too much, even if it is a nice overall look.)
Then there’s North Dakota’s plate, I keep mistaking it for Arizona’s plate from a distance. Nice enough plate (N.D.'s), but couldn’t they have made the sheath of wheat look more like wheat and not bananas?
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Texas does indeed have a skillion of 'em. The full list is here. Right now I have the “And Justice For All” plate on my truck.
One of the lamest “standard” plates around right now is New Mexico’s, in my opinion. ugh. Like there’s nothing in NM but balloons?
Wisconsin has 24.
Only “certified members of Lao Veterans of America, Inc.” can own this one. Suspiciously, there are no similar restrictions on Freemason plates.
Thanks bare, but never being in my right mind, I kept one of my old plates. On the other hand, if you’ve got one with the actual potato or the flailing skier (from the 40’s and 50’s)…
Heh, Green Bean. I guess the Jersey plates are a bit pissy-colored. How inappropriate for such a cheery driving public! At least we know who we’re shaking our fists at or giving the bird to when cut off. 
I did find a site that shows all state plates, including the infamous ship plate referred to by myself and Duke. It’s shown under optional issues with disappearing lettering at its best.
Cranky, I too am from Michigan, and I absolutly despise the new plates!
I thought the college plates were allright, but not for my car, Western Michigan in my Michigan bathroom, a decoration.
I would think with all the new plates out that the police would have a hard time from a distance IDing a plate from out of state. Being close ot the Indiana border the new plates are similar to Indy’s at a distance.
The point of most of these plates? Money.
I’ll take my nice blue and white plate, thank you.
SD
California is one of those states where (generally) a single pair (front/back) of plates stays with a vehicle forever. Old designs take a long time to totally vanish from the roads.
The current default design is relatively plain, but I think it looks really good. Elegant simplicity, if you will. White plate, blue number, red cursive script “California” at the top. No images. For a while there was a red sesquicentennial blurb at the very bottom, but I believe (not sure) they’ve recently removed it. It’s hard to tell, as it’s covered up by a license plate frame anyway (which a large fraction of the cars here have, many courtesy of the dealership…).
This site lists 10 specialty plates presently available. The “whale tail” one is the snazziest, IMO, although I’ve seen a few of those recently in which the background image was quite darker, and I thought it made the number harder to read. For some reason, I like the fact that the standard plate is simple enough that the specialty plates aren’t wholesale redesigns - they can simply add a background image and perhaps a slogan at the bottom.
While it isn’t my state anymore, Maryland has pretty cool plates - the normal ones are black on white, and the most popular optional issue ones have a blue heron and some reeds. Kind of nice, I’ve always thought.
I have a hard time telling the “basic” Florida orange from the “basic” Georgia peach. State troopers stationed in Valdosta must love their jobs.
Missouri’s basic plates are kinda bluish-greenish with a wavy line underneath the word “Missouri.” It all suggests the ocean. That’s funny: Missouri, Ocean. Hee hee.
As FCM says, we’ve got a gazillion of 'em. When I tried to look at the DHSMV site (15 points to decipher that acronym), the MyFlorida site was acting wierd. But anyway, this is the link …
http://www.hsmv.state.fl.us/html/titlinf.html
As you can see (if you can get in) the site linked by brachy doesn’t begin to scratch the surface.
And, as rastahomie noticed, our “orange” looks a lot like the Georgia “peach.”
One of the worst readability offenders is the “Arts” plate, several shades of blue background, with red letters. Almost unreadable. Add one of those plastic covers, and you’re anonymous.
A big problem is the alpha-numeric font we use - stolen from early Casio LED watches. There are many letter/number pairs that look alike, even up close. Must drive the cops crazy.
Used to be that all the non-special plates had the county on the bottom. Then someone observed this makes it obvious when someone isn’t “at home” and thus a crime-target (really!). So now we have an option, our county, or “Sunshine State.”
Besides the politics of the “Choose Life” plate, the moron designers used the black-on-yellow scheme that gov’t plates have used in Fla. for eons.
If I were King of Florida … we could still have specialty plates, but they would all be based on the basic plate: two groups of 3 alpha-numerics, with an outline of Florida in the middle. Then, the “specialization” would hover over the map, like the peach/orange does on the basic plate. And I’d fix that damn fruit. Then, everyone would know itsa Florida plate.
We have 2 education-apple plates (Mrs. PlanMan is a teacher), and a generic on PlanCollegeDaughter’s car (she woulda had to pay the extra fee).