# Oval White Abbreviated Signs on Cars **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 31, 2003, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oval-white-abbreviated-signs-on-cars/192159 "2003-07-31T16:14:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oval-white-abbreviated-signs-on-cars/192159/21 "2003-08-01T13:19:50Z")
> [@](#): > > …These are apprently from Springfield, **NT**. There’s a Springfield in the Northwest Territories? Man, those places are _everywhere!!!_ 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![moriah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b2d939/32.png) [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2003, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oval-white-abbreviated-signs-on-cars/192159/22 "2003-08-04T03:32:54Z")
[FBI](http://www.americastore.com/fbiovalsticker.html) [Bar Harbor](http://www.coolasamoose.com/eurost.html) (but not an ineffable BH). The surmised to have existed [GD](http://www.rainout.com/stgdoval.html). [BIGFY](http://www.beerisgoodforyou.com/store/html/bigfy%20oval.htm) (an advertisement of stupidity) And, the self-referential parody: [SOS](http://stupidsticker.homestead.com/main.html). P ---
**Author:** ![Popup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@Popup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Popup)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2003, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oval-white-abbreviated-signs-on-cars/192159/23 "2003-08-04T09:26:51Z")
This is outrageous. This is supposed to be a forum for elimination of ignorance, not silly jokes and ignorant guesses. Some of the answer was provided by **Nametag** in the thread linked to by **everton**. He said: > [@](#): > > _posted by Nametag:_ > \*\*Lor’ he’p us. The stickers originated as a way for countries to distinguish international traffic. The “official” stickers are recognized by the United Nations as listed in the “1968 Convention on Road Traffic and the 1949 Convention on Road Traffic.” In pre-EU Europe, the oval white stickers were used to clearly indicate the nation of registration of a given vehicle: GB for Great Britain, F for France, D for Deutschland, E for España, etc. EU has switched to blue stickers with a circle of stars (EU symbol) surrounding the letter(s). > > Anyone with the white stickers in Europe is driving an old car; anyone with either sticker in the U.S. is a pretentious twit, who insists that it be recognized that (a) he lives in a particular (yet none-too-distinguished-on its-own) area; (b) he has been “abroad,” and is displaying the symbol of the country that he visited or that he claims as his ho > meland; © his car has been “abroad,” and was once registered there.\*\* The part about anyone in Europe with a white oval having an old car isn’t quite true though. It is true that many EU countries have ‘new’ licence plates, which to the left of the actual numbers have the EU emblem and the country code. Within those countries, that is accepted as a ‘country designator’, but I don’t think that it would qualify as the ‘distinguishing sign’ described in the [UN convention on Road Traffic](http://www.6towns.com/driving/Annexes.html). Thus, vehicles in international traffic _ought to have_ the oval sticker, even in those countries. And there are other European countries (both EU members and non-members) where the lience plate does not integrate the above-mentioned country designator. In those cases it is indeed common to see the oval sticker as well. On a slightly different tack, the country codes[ _used to be_ those listed in the annex 4 of the link above. One problem is that quite a few of those countries don’t exist anymore (e.g. Yugoslavia), have changed name (e.g. Nothern Rhodesia), or have changed status (I don’t think the Algerians drive with ‘F’ stickers anymore.;)) Who desigates new codes for these countries? Another issue is the I have seen stickers using the ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 codes (e.g. ‘SE’ instead of ‘S’ for Sweden.) Does this correspond to a general trend towards using ISO 3166 on vehicle designators? (In the same way as the Europpean postal union changed the postal codes a couple of years ago, and now prescribe using the ISO 3166.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oval-white-abbreviated-signs-on-cars/192159.md?page=1)