Okay, I’m not worked up enough about this to stick it in the Pit, so I’ll post it here:
Why in the world would someone want to sport some total inanity on their license plate? I mean, your name, okay. I doesn’t float my boat personally, but if you want “Bob” on your license plate, go crazy. And you, “HotBabe” – I’ll probably conclude you’re more immature than otherwise, and I’ll make my own decision about your babe-dom, but I assume you genuinely, in the depths of your tiny little brain, think you are a babe. Fine. Thanks for sharing.
But today I’m stopped at a light behind a Toyota Camry, the license plate of which read – you guessed it – “Camry.” WTF? I’d guess it was in case anyone needed to know just what kind of hot car it was, except (a) it’s a flipping Camry and (b) not six inches away, a little up and two the right, was the shiney chrome name plate announcing that it was a Camry. And then, coming up the road – “RedTruk.” Well, yes, that is in fact a truck, and yes, it is in fact red. Way to pay extra money to state the obvious.
I mean, it’s bad enough people pay good money to have their license plates make statements for them, but what does it say about you when you pay to have your license plate make a statement, but you don’t really have any statement to make. They should all be issued identical plates that read “VAIN SCHMO”.
What really pisses me off is people who have fancy cars, then get vanity plates that let you know that they have * another * fancy car at home–i.e. JAG NO3
hee hee - the two Neanderthals I sat next to in high school bio were pissed off they couldn’t both get licence plates that said “IROCK” to put on their white I-ROCs. It was already taken…So they had to settle for JOELROCS and PETEROCK, which local cops always mistook for “pet rock.”
While the initial cost varies from state to state (I guess) the lucky duckies with those plates get to pay it year after year after year. Fits with some of the plates you see doesn’t it?
Here in Virginia we have more vanity plates, I believe, than any other state (including California). It’s only an extra $10 a year here, so everyone gets them. I had one for a while…TLPCASM (This License Plate Contains A Satanic Message), but then that car went bye-bye. When I got my current car, I got TCNOHOR (Technowhore). Virginia allows a max of 7 characters, so you’ve got to get pretty creative.
The ones that really yank my chain are the ones with folks’ initials on them. Today I have been informed that the following couples exist in my neighborhood: CDS FHS, MMR MWR, and CDY FHY. I couldn’t be happier for them. Really.
Recently in CA there was a controversy about our DMV allowing a particular personalized plate, then recalling when narrow-minded people got bent about it.
It wasn’t even obscene (tho those do sneak through). It was a couple who wanted to put their initials on the plate, separated by a +. In CA, we can have a plus sign, a heart or a hand on our plates, as well as letters & numbers. But they settled for an “n” in the middle.
So anyway, the plate read “RAPNJAP.” And yes, some people came unglued becasue they thought it was somehow a racial slur against Asians who sing hiphop.
Good God, if you need something to do with your life, come clean my house…
Well, we have a vanity plate with my husband’s software product on it (3DS MAX). I guess that’s sorta lame, but he likes it. However, I’m the one that is usually driving it. The bad thing about having these plates is that they are too easily remembered. I know if I do something REALLY stupid in traffic, next time the offendee sees my car they will probably remember it. Yipes.
My spouse, who is otherwise an intelligent, conservative person, really wants to get “Led Zep” for his car (cringe). First of all, I am SURE it is taken. I have a gleeful time speculating aloud on the make, model, and year of the car to which that plate is attached. Furthermore, even if he DID manage to be the first loser who asks for it, I’m convinced it would just make him a target for bored cops. He is not swayed. Luckily, he’s too lazy to actually go to the Sec’y of State to look into it.
“Honey, it’s a BAND. A defunct band. The seventies are OVER. You are pushing 40 and you have a mortgage. You haven’t fired up a bong in nearly 20 years. Furthermore, the sunshade we just bought for the back window has Elmo and Cookie Monster on it. Thus, we ARE NOT GETTING LED ZEPPELIN LICENSE PLATES.”
I can understand the whole put-my-name-on-the-plate thing, but a guy I went to high school with had POMPOUS on his sports car and, well, I’ve associated vanity plates with prick-like behavior (not to mention a waste of money) ever since.
In high school I knew someone who wanted vanity plates that say ASSMAN
of course he got the idea from the Seinfeld episode.
I knew another guy in HS, first name Garret, went by the nickname G Man. His plates read, G MAN 3
The frightening revelation from this was that there were at least two other of this guy out on the road. He fantasized about one day pulling up to a light, G MAN 1 and G MAN 2 pulling up beside him, all in the same make and model SUV, all grooving to the same song (and he knew exactly which song too – his favorite song, Elton John’s Princess Di rewrite of Goodbye Norma Jean)
I know guys that got 83 J10 and JP J10. They got tired of people looking at their fullsize Jeep pickups and asking “What kinda Chevy is that?”
I remember there was a court case in California a few years ago from a pair of lesbians that wanted to get 2 DYKES but the state wouldn’t let them have it.
I didn’t get my own license plate; my wife got mine as a present for me.
It says “MY ELF”. She’s constantly accusing me of doing the dishes while she sleeps, and I keep insisting that I hardly do anything around the house; an elf comes in and does it (as in the old “Shoemaker and the Elves” fairy tale).
To give these folks the benefit of the doubt, maybe such things as “Camry” and initials are primarily to help them remember their plate number? Sometimes I have difficulty remember the order of the numbers on mine, so I can see wanting a pronounceable word. Also, in NC, the fees go to such things as planting flowers along the highway and buying land to preserve ecological diversity, which is nice.
This kills me too, because I thought the whole reason of vanity plates was to express your individuality, but if you can’t be more original than “Joanie4” than don’t even bother.
What happens when these people get new vehicles? Do they have to trade in the “Camry” plate for one that says “Escort” or “Civic”? Of course they then run the risk of winding up with “Escort4”.
