Vanity plate

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A vanity plate or personalized plate (US), prestige plate, private number plate, personalised registration (UK) or custom plate, personalised plate (Australia and New Zealand) is a special type of vehicle registration plate 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 licensing agencies. In some jurisdictions, such as the Canadian province of British Columbia, vanity plates have a different color scheme and design.

[edit] North America

Some vanity plates may resemble regular issue license plates, as this one from Pennsylvania does. It references the number of New York City Fire Department members killed in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.

In 2007, the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) and Stefan Lonce, author, LCNS2ROM — LICENSE TO ROAM: Vanity License Plates and the Stories They Tell, conducted North America's first state by state/province by province survey of vanity plates, revealing there are 9.7 million vehicles embellished or "vanitized" with a personalized vanity license plate.

The AAMVA-LCNS2ROM Vanity Plates Survey ranks jurisdictions by "vanity plate penetration rate," which is the percentage of registered motor vehicles that are vanitized. Virginia has the highest American vanity plate penetration rate (16.19%), followed by New Hampshire (13.99%), Illinois (13.41%), Nevada (12.73%), Montana (9.8%), Maine (9.79%), Vehicle registration plates of Connecticut|Connecticut]] (8.14%), New Jersey (6.88%), North Dakota (6.51%) and Vermont (6.11%). Texas had the lowest vanity plate penetration rate (.56%).

According to the Federal Highway Administration, there were 242,991,747 privately owned and commercial registered automobiles, trucks and motorcycles in the U.S. in 2005, which means that 3.83% of eligible American vehicles are vanitized.

Ontario had the highest Canadian vanity plate penetration rate (4.59%), followed by Saskatchewan (2.69%), Manitoba (1.96%), the Yukon (1.79%), and the Northwest Territories (1.75%). British Columbia had the lowest vanity plate penetration rate (.59%).

According to Statistics Canada, in 2006 there were 14,980,046 registered motor vehicles (excluding buses, trailers, and off-road, farm and construction vehicles) in the provinces and territories that issue vanity plates, which means that 2.94 % of eligible Canadian vehicles are vanitized.

The AAMVA-LCNS2ROM Vanity Plates Survey also found that every state and the District of Columbia, and every province, except for Quebec, Prince Edward Island^{[citation needed]}, and Newfoundland and Labrador, issues vanity 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. However, the maximum number of characters on an optional plate may be lower than on a standard-issue plate. For example, the U.S. state of Virginia allows up to 7.5 characters (a space or hyphen is counted as 0.5 character) on a standard-issue plate, but only up to 6 characters on many of its optional plates.

In some states, a motorist may check the availability of a desired combination online.

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", while the state of New York bans any plates with the letters "FDNY", "NYPD", or GOD, among others.^[1] Often the ban is to eliminate confusion with plates used on governmental vehicles or plates used on other classes of vehicles. However, a licensing authority's discretion to deny or revoke "offensive" vanity plates is finite. For example, some U.S. motorists have successfully sued their state governments on that issue under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.^[2]

The "blue list" is not definitive; in general, the agent processing an application for a vanity plate can reject a plate if it is deemed offensive, even if the phrase does not match a banned word exactly. State DMVs have received complaints about offensive vanity plates.^[3] In this case, the DMV can revoke a plate if it is deemed offensive, even if it were previously approved.^[4]

In some cases, a plate that has already been issued can be recalled and stripped from the vehicle's owner if the plate's message is found to be in violation after it has been issued. Some notable cases are:

• In 2002, a Florida man was stripped of his plates that read "ATHEIST," but was then allowed to keep them^[5].

• A Virginia woman lost her plates that read "HAISSEM" (Messiah spelled backwards)^[6].

• In 2007, a South Dakota woman nearly lost her vanity plates that read MPEACHW (meaning "impeach W").^[7], but the decision to remove them was later reversed^[8].

[edit] United Kingdom

Plate made to look like LAMBO on a Lamborghini (spotted in Puerto Banús, Costa del Sol).

In the United Kingdom, number plates are issued by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). They do not approve personalised registrations if they contain words which are offensive in any widely used language. It should also be noted that UK plates have to match certain very strict letter/number combinations including the following:

• XXX 999
• 999 XXX
• XXX 999 X
• X 999 XXX
• XX 99 XXX

For ordinary registrations, many of the letters are fixed: e.g. in the first four above, the 2nd and 3rd letters, and in the fifth, the first two letters, have to correspond to the original registration district of the car, and not all combinations have ever been used. In the first four, the numbers can be 1, 2 or 3 digits.

Registrations can be sold, or transferred from one vehicle to another, with some restrictions. Originally the only vanity plates were ordinary registrations that had been transferred, but from the 1990s the DVLA has also sold personalised registrations unrelated to the registration districts. Vanity plates that exist include:

• MON180X (Moneybox)
• BEG41T (Beg For It)
• AD06 BOX (A dog box)

There is some additional flexibility available by using numbers that resemble letters (eg S / 5), or by using large black-headed screws to fix the plate to the car to fill in a gap. However, the font style, size and spacing is mandated by law, and the police can (and sometimes do) take people to task for being too creative.

Some plates only acquire significance because of particular owners, e.g. COM 1C was formerly owned by the comedian Jimmy Tarbuck, magician Paul Daniels had MAG1C, while the unremarkable 1967 plate BEL 12E is owned by the Belize High Commission and CHN 1 is owned by the Chinese Embassy.

In the UK, there are a large number of private dealers who act as agents selling DVLA registrations, as well as their own stock - often purchased at auction or from private sellers.

[edit] Other countries

A custom plate from Victoria, Australia.

VIP 1 was advertised "as one of the most important and impressive number plates ever issued", it is a registration issued in the Republic of Ireland for the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1984 ^[9]. The plate was used on his Popemobile.

In Australia the various states offer personalised plate schemes, with some states having a yearly fee to maintain the cherished number. In the Australian states of Victoria and Queensland the proceeds from the sale of custom plates and personalised plates go towards road safety activities.

As of 2006, Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Latvia, Poland, Slovenia, Iceland and Sweden also allows such license plates.

On November 19, 2007, Dutch MP Paul de Krom proposed that vanity plates be introduced in the Netherlands as well, after having seen them while visiting the United States.^[10] One barrier his proposal would have to overcome would be that the RDW (the Dutch vehicle registration authority) links license plates to the actual cars as opposed to their owners.

[edit] Vanity plates in film and television

• In the TV show Mythbusters a California plate reading 'NODOUDT' is featured in various episodes.

New York vanity license plate featuring ASSMAN, made famous on the 1990s sitcom Seinfeld. Normally "ASSMAN" wouldn't be considered appropriate for a vanity plate

• In the music video "Soldier" by Beyonce a plate reading "DA DURTY" appears.
• The game show Bumper Stumpers was wholly based on guessing fake vanity license plates for cash and prizes.
• In the American film Falling Down, the main character William "Bill" Foster, played by Michael Douglas, is known through most of the film by his California plate serial: D-FENS (as he was employed by a defense contractor).
• In the American television program Knight Rider, KITT's vanity California plate read KNIGHT. (His evil mis-programmed prototypes, seen in two episodes, read KARR).
• In the American television sitcom 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. New York does not allow the use of the word "ASS" on either their regular or vanity plates.
• In the Back to the Future trilogy, the DeLorean time machine's California license plates read OUTATIME.
• One of George Lucas' early films was a science fiction vision of the future, THX 1138, and it starred Robert Duvall. In a later Lucas classic, American Graffiti, the 1932 Ford deuce coupe hot rod driven by John Milner has a license plate that reads THX 138. At that time California had not changed to seven-digit plates, but this was not really a vanity plate, just a homage to the previous film.
• In the TV show Trailer Park Boys the character Cyrus has a plate reading CYRUS1 mounted on the front of his Corvette. The plate is unoriginal, and reflects the character's arrogance and lack of intelligence (he failed grade 10).
• In the TV show Reno 911! several first season episodes open with two cops chasing a car and reading the plate into the radio. When they realize it's a vanity plate and try to figure out what it reads they end up crashing into the car.
• In the opening credits of L.A. Law, a California vanity plate reading LA LAW appears on the back of a Jaguar, though in later episodes, the plate is mounted on a Bentley.
• In the 1977 movie Smokey and the Bandit, the Pontiac Trans Am driven by Burt Reynolds (the Bandit) has a Georgia vanity plate that reads BAN ONE signifying his CB radio call sign "Bandit One." This was one of the first movies, if not the first, to prominently feature a vanity plate. During the movie, the Sheriff asks a citizen if he saw the plate on the car and the citizen spells out the license plate.
• In the 1990 Columbo episode Columbo Goes to College the car used by the Criminology Department to reconstruct the murder of Professor Rusk has a vanity plate reading CRMNOLG.
• In the 1984 movie Ghostbusters, the Ghostbusters' 1959 Cadillac Miller Meteor Ambulance has a New York vanity plate reading "ECTO-1".
• The film Elvira showed a license plate of the protagonist saying KICKASS.
• A character in the film Con Air has a licence plate saying AZZKIKR.
• The leading character Sarah Tobias in the 1988 movie The Accused, had the plate SXY SDIE.
• The character Missy from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey has the plate MISSY.
• The antagonist from the 2001 horror movie Jeepers Creepers has the plate BEATN U (Be Eating You).
• In the TV series Frasier, Martin registers his motor home with the plate RDWRER (Roadwarrior).
• In the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ferris borrows his friend's car which has the license plate NRVOUS. Several other vanity plates portrayed in the film are references to other films also directed by John Hughes. (Example: MMOM for Mr. Mom.)
• In the film Cellular, the feisty lawyer's car has the plate I SUE U 2.
• In National Lampoon's Vacation, a girl has the plate LOVEME.
• In the film The Breakfast Club, the car in which Brian arrives at the school has a license plate that reads EMC 2, which highlights the intellectual qualities of the character. The car that Andrew's father drives says OHIO ST.
• In the movie Office Space, Bill Lumbergh owns a Porsche 911 with the plate "MY PRSCHE".
• The character Burt Gummer from the film Tremors has a truck with a license plate labelled UZI 4 U.
• In Wayne's World, the vanity plate MR. BIGG on a limo is a key part of the film, helping Garth helping Wayne to get Cassandra.
• In the TV series Veronica Mars, all wealthy family members have in their car's license plate their last name followed by a number which tells the family member he/she is. For example, the plate of Mrs. Lynn Echolls, Logan Echoll's mom, reads ECHOLS 2.
• In the TV series Who's the Boss?, Tony buys his daughter Samantha a car, which embarrasses her. He completes the gift with a vanity plate that reads SAMSCAR, which is also the name of the episode.
• In the 2008 film Baby Mama, Carl's vanity plate says MYGIRLROX on a Pennsylvania vanity plate on his Camaro

[edit] Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• The highest price paid for a vanity plate in the UK is £330,000, paid at auction on 7 June 2006 for "M 1", beating the previous record of £285,000 paid by Roman Abramovich for "VIP 1". It has been reported that M 1 was purchased by a man in the north-west of England, who bought the plate for his eleven-year-old son.^{[citation needed]}
• The highest reported price paid for a vanity plate worldwide is USD 14 million. The vanity plate "1" was bought at an auction in Abu Dhabi on February 17, 2008. It was purchased by Saeed Khouri, a member of a wealthy Abu Dhabi family.^[11]
• Former Mayor of New York City Ed Koch is an adamant supporter of vanity plates. He has a vanity plate that reads: "MNYKOCH".^{[citation needed]}
• A story about a vanity plate is connected to the first ever wiki.^[12]
• A randomly-generated Florida plate which read "A55 RGY" appeared to read as "ASS ORGY" if the orange in the center of the plate is interpreted as an "O".^[13]

[edit] See also

• Vehicle registration plates of Australia
• Vehicle registration plates of Canada
• Vehicle registration plates of Denmark
• Vehicle registration plates of Hong Kong
• Vehicle registration plates of Poland
• Vehicle registration plates of Sweden
• Vehicle registration plates of the United Kingdom
• Vehicle registration plates of the United States

The Top 100 Vanity Plates==References==

[edit] External links

• Largest Gallery of Vanity Plates on The Web (US)
• Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency: Personalised Registration (UK)
• New York State Department of Motor Vehicles: Custom & Personalized Plates (US)
• California DMV - Special Interest License Plate Ordering Information (US)
• Search banned Wisconsin license plates
• The Most Expensive Number Plates in The World