Hot Town, Summer in the City....

[deadbody]

the best one I ever saw. On a Volkswagen beetle (commonly called a slug bug here in MN)

NOBAKS

for the uninformed, when a kid sees a slug bug, they are supposed to hit their sibling and say "Slug Bug no backs"

[Jetfire]

New Brunswick used to have the tagline "The Picture Province" for years on its plates.

Then for a LONG time we had no tagline at all; just the burgandy/red on white plates (with Green lettering for the province name).

Then for some reason, the government decided we needed a new tagline, and even more strangely decided to go with the tag: "Be... in this place. Etre ... Ici on le peut."

Everyone hated that tagline universally; mainly because it didn't make any sense. (And the french makes little more sense; it says "Be... here we can." ). It was another nail in the coffin of the government of the time. I think the Conservation plates saw an upswing in purchases since they didn't come with that tagline.

The new government in 2011 decided that the slogan would be phased out, and for now replaced with the no-tagline plates, and no word yet (after 3 years and an election pending) on a new tagline.

[sms001]

I'd expect that many here in Florida

I miss the old plates that had the county on them - you could tell a lot about the driver pretty easily that way.

[mathnerd]

The worst vanity plate I ever heard of (which got pulled as soon as it was figured out) was a guy who got a Challenger commemorative plate in Florida that said KBOOM.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Classic!

Sadly, the guy who had the EATTHE "Kids First" plate had it revoked by the Va. DMV a few years ago. Not because it suggested cannibalism, but because some people construed it as pertaining to oral sex.

His attempt at getting a new vanity plate "FUVADMV" did not pass muster.

[eltf177]

Funny we went this direction. The other day, on a whim, I decided to see how many other state's plates I could account for in a single day of driving.

The answer:

35 states, the District of Columbia (The US Capitol, for convoluted political reasons, isn't a state, but a Federal "district" that issues it's own plates to residents) and two Canadian Provinces. .

Wow! Around Northern VA you can expect to see around a dozen different states, DC and maybe an Ontario. But you wouldn't _believe_ how many Alaska tags you see around here, I think there was one day I saw no less than _four_ of them!

[wolfie]

A friend of mine, who is a big Jimmy Buffett fan (aka Parrothead) has FRTCKS. Othee Buffett fans will get this.

For non-parrotheads, what does it mean?

The worst vanity plate I ever heard of (which got pulled as soon as it was figured out) was a guy who got a Challenger commemorative plate in Florida that said KBOOM.

I wonder how many provinces and states, on 2001/09/10, had on the road an ordinary (i.e. not vanity) plate either "WTC 911" or "911 WTC" (depending on whether they did letters or numbers first), and how many of those got "souveneired" before they could be pulled.

Also, did anyone have a Challenger commemorative plate that said 4664? Bonus points if it were on a (vintage, since the new ones only came out fairly recently) Dodge Challenger.

[XCashier]

A friend of mine, who is a big Jimmy Buffett fan (aka Parrothead) has FRTCKS. Other Buffett fans will get this.

For non-parrotheads, what does it mean?

I believe it's a reference to this fun little tune.

[Kit-Ginevra]

This guy got issued his plate at random.. For some reason he wanted it changed..

[Argabarga]

Interestingly enough, this guy, who also got the plate at random, DIDN'T want to change it, he found it kind of funny.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/sites/d...ts/assorgy.jpg

Now, this guy DID do this on purpose, and somehow, the New York DMV didn't catch it.... the "reject" filter that's supposed to catch hidden swear words and such apparently doesn't have a German database.....

https://scontent-b-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/...68202048_n.jpg

[Jay 2K Winger]

I'm reminded of some episodes of Top Gear, where Clarkson, Hammond, and May talked about the plates that the government had rejected. (While pointing out the idiocy of charging you money for getting a vanity plate with naughty words in it, and then fining you for having a vanity plate with naughty words in it.)

Then there was the time, during one of their cheap-car challenges, when Clarkson had some fun pointing out anagrams in the others' cars. Hammond's was L48I RAR ("LIAR") and May's was GS99 HOS ("GOSH").

Funnily enough, he didn't comment on his own, which was CTU 131N.

[Chromatix]

Of course, Doc Brown's DeLorean had OUTATIME.

Vanity plates exist in the UK as well, but they have to conform to one of the standard arrangements of letters and numbers, either from the current series, or from a historical one, of which there have been several. There's another rule, too - the number must not correspond to a date newer than the vehicle.

The earliest plates involve up to three letters and up to three numbers, either in that order or reversed. The letters encode the place of issue (usually plus one 'free' letter), while the numbers (and the 'free' letter) were nominally issued in sequence until they ran out. At some point there was a legitimate plate issued as "A 1". These are the plates which are permitted to be white-on-black, if the vehicle itself is older than a specified date.

Somewhere around Decimalisation time, with demand for plates outstripping supply, the format changed - three letters, up to three digits, and one letter in that order. Two of the first three letters still encoded place of issue, while the final letter encoded the year. In the 1980s, they ran out of year-letters (some of them aren't used for various reasons), so they reversed the order and began again.

Come the turn of the Millennium, the plate format changed again, this time to be more future-proof. Now it's two place-letters, two digits encoding the half-year, and three letters that are normally chosen at random. For an extra fee, one can order specified letters if they're available. The DVLA (who is the issuing authority) tries to predict which plates will be most sought-after, removes them from the random pool, and charges more for them; they also remove potentially offensive combinations from the pool in advance. These new-format plates must be in the latest style, which includes a thin blue panel with the EU logo and the British flag, this being a European standard. The font is officially made slightly narrower to accommodate this.

Additionally, all plates must use the correct colour scheme (black on white at the front, black on yellow at the back - except for some early historical plates, which may be white on black) and font and spacing, and may not have the fixing screw appear in a position which could impair legibility (eg. between two 1s to appear as an H).

Plates violating the colour-scheme, font and legibility rules are often seen in practice, but traffic police typically come down quite firmly on offenders.

Finland and Estonia, having considerably smaller car-owning populations than the UK, have stuck with the three letters and three digits scheme. A fairly large and recognisable car in central Helsinki can be seen with JUM 80.

[Kit-Ginevra]

You will occasionally see different flags popping up,especially without the EU logo-English or Welsh or Scottish.Down here,there's a lot of Cornish flags and the occasional Devon one.They're not in theory legal, but it's very rare that anyone takes any action.

[prjkt]

This guy got issued his plate at random.. For some reason he wanted it changed..

funnily enough that number doesn't really mean much here, but it is pretty ironic

[wolfie]

I believe it's a reference to this fun little tune.

Youtube doesn't work on my computer - song title please.