A Note on Vanity Plates
[Editor's Note: I got this email this morning from my friend Lisa, after reading it and laughing quite a bit, I asked her if she'd mind if I posted it to the site. She said "no, I wouldn't mind." So here it is.]
I’m not really sure why I feel the need to share this in an e-mail but
I’m going to so just bear with me (or ignore it, I will probably never
know the difference).
I HATE vanity plates. I always have. They bother me in a way that I
cannot adequately describe in words (though I am going to try). Do
people think it makes them special to have dopey, usually
misspelled/truncated words that only sometimes make sense to the
general population? Are they too good for the randomly arranged
combination of letters and numbers that the rest of us make due with?
Today I was particularly perturbed (even irked) by two that I saw on
my way to work. The first one said ‘punk’. Now, I give this person
credit for having a correctly spelled word. However, this license
plate appeared on a brand new Saab. That I saw in the parking lot of a
Starbucks. In Darien. I can only hope that this person was taking a
stab at being ironic. (Although a license plate is certainly not the
place for irony. But I digress…) Either way I feel that ‘tool’ or
‘douchebag’ would probably have been more appropriate.
The other license plate didn’t offend me as much, I just thought it
was dum. (See how I left the ‘b’ off of the end of the word. Because I
know how to spell it, but it’s so dumb that it’s dum. Get it? Look at
how clever I am. Ok back to my point.) This one said ‘burger’. Once
again, spelled correctly (bonus points there). I just couldn’t figure
out why someone would want that as a license plate. Does he/she like
to eat burgers? Does he/she want to be a burger? Does he/she work at
McDonald’s? Was this person called a cow in high school? Does this
‘burger’ have some deep, inner meaning that mere mortals (such as
myself) are unaware of? Is it some sort of riddle? (Although let’s be
honest, license plates are NOT the place for deep thinking of any
sort). Perhaps he/she wants to piss off the people that are stuck
behind him/her. In which case, mission fucking accomplished.
So there. I feel much better now. Happy Friday.
~L
P.S. A note on Starbucks: I am an addict. What the hell do they put in
their coffee? Crack? I literally cannot stop drinking it.
Lisa really likes encyclopedias and Jane Austen novels.
Hi, I'm 
As the driver of a car with vanity plates that was handed down to me, of course I have to disagree to some extent and I feel the need to respond. I understand your anger and/or frustration when seeing a nice new Saab in Darien with punk on the back, and I agree with you on that one. But the plates on my car say PHILD, simply the first name and last initial of my father who got them originally. I see nothing wrong with having plates with initials, names or even the occasional clever play on words, such as 8BALL for example (someone who enjoys pool) or PAT FAN (a New England Patriots fan). I think if done properly, vanity plates can be a fun place for self expression or a little bit of uniqueness as apposed to the normal boring combination of numbers and letters. Even the plates that seem to make no sense to you or me can be fun to try and figure out with a passenger while stuck in traffic. As far has the misspellings, I think its clear that with only six or if you’re lucky, seven places to use, a few choice letters may get left by the wayside to get the point across. I am not really sure why I a responding with such length, maybe its because I have some homework I should be doing, but I think vanity plates are fun and if you can get past the horrible and arrogant ones (such as your punk example) you can learn to laugh with them.
I’m a longtime supporter of the PHILD plates. I could live without the rest, but long live PHILD.
I also have a soft spot in my heart for the PHILD plates. I actually have the old style CT PHILD plate as a memento of my high school years. It was the plate on my frist car, and even though my name isnt Phil somehow PHILD became my nickname to some people, who still call me that to this day. I enjoyed the PHILD plates so much, I have thought of getting PHILD2 for my car or possible PHILD from another state.
Vanity plates constitute one of the few luxury taxes the Republicans aren’t trying to repeal. Similar to the lottery, just not regressive.
Topical irony rules the roost on this one too. Driving south on 101 last week, I saw a brand-spanking new, metallic copper Murano with a Google license-plate frame and the license plate BLOGGER. It wasn’t Evhead.
[Excuse the over-general link, but the online marketing geniuses at Nissan prefer the useless flash of Flash to people linking to their specific models. Bad blog-awareness, awful Search Engine Marketing, etc.]
coming from the car culture of LA (i had to leave my 2 cars when moving to nyc), i dont really have anything against the vanity plates. i just see it like another way to customize your car, like bumper stickers. in particular, i remember this one plate that kindof blew my mind. i was following a car with the plate: 3V3T2. i followed for a minute trying to put things together and finally gave up. after passing the car, i took one last glance in the rearview mirror to see if i missed anything, when clear as day the reflection read STEVE.
VANITY PLATES ROCK! by jhu
How can anyone have a problem with vanity plates? Would you really rather see a meaningless list of letter and numbers than read SAFSEX or TOUCHMETHERE (i know its too long) on someone’s car.
And is there anything more fun, besides roadhead, than not having any idea what someone’s vanity plates say? And then you get to figure it out…it’s fun, people!!!
Look, in Jersey we used to have real shit license plates and if some guy wants to tell me, through his plates that he has a transmittable STD, more power to him.
-the j train