Vote for Florida's new tags.

[BlueSky]

My home town has California license plates dedicated to it, which I always thought was a bit weird

But it's definitely a good way to spot a pretentious douche of a tourist who won't shut up about their "Cabin" in Tahoe.

About California vanity plates...bizarre story, but true. I moved out there in 1989 and vanity plates were very cheap ($25 extra IIRC) so lots of people had them. As always it was entertaining to try and figure out their meaning. So I was sitting at a red light one day and the plate ahead of me said LEZZN IT. That one had me stumped until the woman in the driver's seat leaned over and kissed the woman in the passenger seat.

Somebody in the DMV missed that one.

[TheoW]

About California vanity plates...bizarre story, but true. I moved out there in 1989 and vanity plates were very cheap ($25 extra IIRC) so lots of people had them. As always it was entertaining to try and figure out their meaning. So I was sitting at a red light one day and the plate ahead of me said LEZZN IT. That one had me stumped until the woman in the driver's seat leaned over and kissed the woman in the passenger seat.

Somebody in the DMV missed that one.

This has to be up there. I took this photo:

[1990hornet]

Florida announced this design as the winner. Great job picking the ugliest design, Florida.

[The_Admiral]

OH GROSS NOT ROCKWELL BLACK DAMN YOU AND SUCH FLORIDA

I don't want standardized plates, though. I like the different designs. The California script from their plates is iconic. L.A. Law!

Plates of my childhood. I miss this simplicity.

[CS85]

OH GROSS NOT ROCKWELL BLACK DAMN YOU AND SUCH FLORIDA

I don't want standardized plates, though. I like the different designs. The California script from their plates is iconic. L.A. Law!

Plates of my childhood. I miss this simplicity.

Ah, I miss those old plates.

----

But yeah, these new florida plates suck the stink off of a dead man's nuts.

[theSLVRBCK]

In the choice's defense ... we were reaching into a steaming pile of crap, and trying to pull out the shiniest chunk.

[hailstateunis]

Florida announced this design as the winner. Great job picking the ugliest design, Florida.

Cool. They picked the best of the four.

[1990hornet]

Florida announced this design as the winner. Great job picking the ugliest design, Florida.

Cool. They picked the best of the four.

BORING!

[Perfect Zero]

I'm convinced that States are moving to boring plates just to get the extra money for personalized tags.

[Dexter Morgan]

NY needs to go back to this:

[raysfan24]

Florida announced this design as the winner. Great job picking the ugliest design, Florida.

I'm sorry but I like it. I like simple stuff.

[IceCap]

It's definitely the best of the choices provided. Though that doesn't say much.

[1990hornet]

Florida announced this design as the winner. Great job picking the ugliest design, Florida.

I'm sorry but I like it. I like simple stuff.

Simple, yes. But it's the boring kind of simple which makes it a horrible choice.

It's definitely the best of the choices provided. Though that doesn't say much.

Hardly the best. Looks like it belongs in a modern art studio or maybe a cafe, not on the back of a car.

[RyanB06]

I'm convinced that States are moving to boring plates just to get the extra money for personalized tags.

It's more for readability purposes than anything else. Cluttered plates may look nice, but aren't as easy for speed enforcement/red light cameras to pick up.

[BBTV]

Another thing that sucks about the orientation of North American license plates is that too many frames cover up part or all of the state name, making it difficult-to-impossible to report a plate to police if you had to. I know that obstructive frames are technically illegal in most places, but they're still all over the place, and due to some of the new plate designs, even seemingly benign frames can obfuscate the state name.

[tubby34]

Another thing that sucks about the orientation of North American license plates is that too many frames cover up part or all of the state name, making it difficult-to-impossible to report a plate to police if you had to. I know that obstructive frames are technically illegal in most places, but they're still all over the place, and due to some of the new plate designs, even seemingly benign frames can obfuscate the state name.

That's a foolish statement.

If you had the first two, last two, third and fith or first and last letters of a plate and the Model, Color or the type of vehicle (SUV,Car,Truck) you can find what vehicle it is a

Right down to the registered owner.

You could even get the car with only one letter if you know what your doing.

And I've never seen a plate that has a frame that covers the letters- which is more important than the state. You guess first the state your in and go from there.

[BBTV]

Another thing that sucks about the orientation of North American license plates is that too many frames cover up part or all of the state name, making it difficult-to-impossible to report a plate to police if you had to. I know that obstructive frames are technically illegal in most places, but they're still all over the place, and due to some of the new plate designs, even seemingly benign frames can obfuscate the state name.

That's a foolish statement.

If you had the first two, last two, third and fith or first and last letters of a plate and the Model, Color or the type of vehicle (SUV,Car,Truck) you can find what vehicle it is a

Right down to the registered owner.

You could even get the car with only one letter if you know what your doing.

And I've never seen a plate that has a frame that covers the letters- which is more important than the state. You guess first the state your in and go from there.

I'm sure a cop would love to get a report "be on the lookout for a Ford Focus with a license plate from some state with the letter Y in it."

Couldn't plate numbers / letters be repeated by different states? I really don't know, but I would assume so. I would have to think it'd help law enforcement if it was always clear what type of tag they were looking for.

If you could explain how the lettering / numbering system could be used for this without needing teh state name to be visible, I'd genuinely be interested in understanding it better.

[illwauk]

OH GROSS NOT ROCKWELL BLACK DAMN YOU AND SUCH FLORIDA

I don't want standardized plates, though. I like the different designs. The California script from their plates is iconic. L.A. Law!

Plates of my childhood. I miss this simplicity.

I miss those too, and the yellow/black Wisconsin tags of my childhood and That 70s Show fame.

[tBBP]

Another thing that sucks about the orientation of North American license plates is that too many frames cover up part or all of the state name, making it difficult-to-impossible to report a plate to police if you had to. I know that obstructive frames are technically illegal in most places, but they're still all over the place, and due to some of the new plate designs, even seemingly benign frames can obfuscate the state name.

This IS true...but, just like so many other "technically-on-the-books" traffic laws in many states, it rarely gets enforced. So yes, Vet has a good point here. That said, if cops wanted to ID a car with an obstructive frame around the plate, they could--fun fact: most state police actually study the various designs of state plates, so that they will know on sight what state it is from a glance.

Anyway, all that said, back to the whole thing about "design vs. function", I've always thought that Indiana did a fine job striking a balance between the two on its most basic plate:

Simple blue background, with easy-to-read white lettering, and the design from the state flag over on the left side. (Now let me explain this business at the top: Indiana numbers its counties in alphabetical order--why, I have no idea--but the number is where that county falls in sequence.)

Now, for those of you who've spent any considerable amount of time in the state (and as such should know enough to know where this next design comes from) have probably also seen just about as many of these riding around:

And then there's this other version for vehicles over 7000 lbs gross--why they feel the need to differentiate these is beyond me (there's also another version for vehicles over 15,000 lbs gross):

As far as my home state goes, I have no clue why, yet again, they felt the need to change plate designs--they just redesigned the things like 10 or 11 years ago. And this new one really ain't doing it for me. But then, neither did the whole MYFLORIDA.COM thing on the soon-to-be-former iteration, either. Personally, I felt the previous iteration was the one they should have stuck with--with solid green "FLORIDA" text, though. That orange gradient was a bit too gaudy for my liking.

[BlueSky]

Another thing that sucks about the orientation of North American license plates is that too many frames cover up part or all of the state name, making it difficult-to-impossible to report a plate to police if you had to. I know that obstructive frames are technically illegal in most places, but they're still all over the place, and due to some of the new plate designs, even seemingly benign frames can obfuscate the state name.

That's a foolish statement.

If you had the first two, last two, third and fith or first and last letters of a plate and the Model, Color or the type of vehicle (SUV,Car,Truck) you can find what vehicle it is a

Right down to the registered owner.

You could even get the car with only one letter if you know what your doing.

And I've never seen a plate that has a frame that covers the letters- which is more important than the state. You guess first the state your in and go from there.

My job involves law enforcement and this is flat out wrong, at least in Georgia. IF it's a Georgia plate and IF there are a few accurate characters given and IF we know the make and model, a police agency can contact the state and get a list of relevant vehicles with those characters in their plates. That's when the fun of sorting out what's what begins.