Vanity plate
A vanity plate (US), prestige plate, personalised registration (UK) or personalised plate (Australia) is a special type of number plate (license plate in America), on an automobile or other vehicle. The owner of the vehicle will have paid extra money to have his or her own choice of numbers or letters, usually forming a recognisable phrase, slogan, or initialism on their plate. Sales of vanity plates are often a significant source of revenue for North American provincial and state licencing agencies. In the Canadian province of British Columbia, the vanity plates look totally different than the regular issue plates. In some states and provinces, optional plates can also be vanity plates and are a choice of motorists who want a more distinctive personalised plate.
All American states and Canadian provinces that issue vanity plates have a "Blue List" of vanity plates that list banned words, phrases or letter/number combinations. The American state of Florida, for example, has banned such plates as "PIMPALA", whilst the state of New York bans any plates with the letters "FDNY" or "NYPD" among others. [1]
In the United Kingdom, number plates are issued by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. They do not approve personalised registrations if they contain words which are offensive in any (widely used) language. Additionally, plates containing the number 666 are not issued, because vehicles bearing them are belived more likely to be involved in accidents (perhaps because of the kind of person who wants such a plate).
In Australia the various states offer personalised plate schemes, with some states having a yearly fee to maintain the cherished number. In the Australian state of Queensland the personalised plate scheme helps fund the Road Safety Activities Fund.
Examples
Some examples of vanity plates seen in North America include:
- MOS 6502 The lady who's holding this Illinois vanity plate is Jeri Ellsworth, a self-taught chip designer. She is best known for creating a hackable Commodore 64 emulator built within a joystick called C64 Direct-to-TV. Note: That licence plate is not hers. It belongs to another fan of MOS Technology 6502. This plate also provides an example of a vanity plate that looks like a normal plate.
- 4NICK8 - "fornicate", on a Volkswagen bus
- BO GM50 - a Baltimore & Ohio Railroad locomotive, seen on the car of an American train spotter or railfan
- FENRY - on a Honda
- POMPUS S - "Pompous ass", on a Mercedes
- 2TH DK - "Tooth decay", on a dentist's car
- OLD CR8 - "Old crate", on a large old car, best avoided in traffic
- A55RGY - actually not a vanity plate, but a standard one. It wouldn't be so much fun if it is not a Florida license plate; the plate reads ASSȰRGY; the central image is a picture of an orange and the 5s are very rounded)[2]
- NDRGOD - "Under God", on a 9-11 unity plate
- DOG 003 - seen on a car with three dogs in it
- NCC 1701 - seen on a Star Trek fan's car, NCC-1701 is the fleet number of the Starship Enterprise
- NYC 2012 - seen on a car of a supporter of the ill fated New York 2012 Olympics bid
- COMICS - is the cartoonist Keno Don Rosa from Kentucky's vanity plate.
Vanity plates in film and television
- In the American film Falling Down, the main character is not named but we read in his California plate D-FENS (he is a defence contractor).
- In the American television programme Knight Rider, KITT's vanity California plate read KNIGHT.
- In the American television programme Seinfeld, Cosmo Kramer was mistakenly issued a set of New York plates that read ASSMAN. It was later determined that they belonged to a proctologist.
Trivia
- A little story about a vanity plate is connected to the first ever wiki: English Sports Car: C2.COM
See also
- Australian vehicle number plates
- British car number plates
- US and Canadian license plates
- List of fictional licence plate numbers