Here in Florida I have noticed that there are a lot of different types of license plates. A lot more than any other place I have been too either in the US or the world. I have been to alot of states and have yet to see a state that comes close to the different amount of license plates the Florida DMV provides. California seems to have only a few different types at least from what I have seen the last two times I been there. New York and all the other East Coast and Southeastern states seem to be the same with just a few choices. And most countries just seem to have one type of plate for everyone. So why is it that Florida has all these different plates? I have a specialty plate myself in the Challenger/Columbia plate and I enjoy the diversity. But am I just not noticing different plates when I am in different states or does Florida just like to have alot of different license plates?
Here is a list of all the different license plates Florida registered vehicles can have at an extra cost. http://www.flhsmv.gov/dmv/specialtytags/

Quoting FlyMIA (Thread starter): New York and all the other East Coast and Southeastern states seem to be the same with just a few choices.

I've found that NY has a lot more options than California. I assume California's rules for specialty plates must be strict because there are so few, and all of the specialty plates are linked to a foundation or charity. One interesting part is that there are limited symbols allowed, such as a heart, hand, and a foot. One of my neighbors likes to wakeboard barefoot and his license plate said "LUV 2 (foot)"

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/online/elp/elp.htm

My favorite Specialty Plate from California:


P.S. I can't stand it how some states put their website on the plate itself.   

[Edited 2008-08-25 00:33:16]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plate#European_Union

We don't have vanity plates in Europe, but some countries have personalised plates (we have one).


Pretty boring....

PlateMan here. I collect license plates and have just over 50 between U.S., Canada, and Australia...trying to get Europe.

Being formerly from NY, we have quite a lot of but the NY DMV tends to charge a lot for them, so many people do not take advantage of them.

At this link you can see all the customized plates: http://nysdmv.com/customplates/default.html
It's fun to make combinations and see them on the plate.

Then again for NY, we have all these 'special' plates
Sports Teams and NASCAR: http://nysdmv.com/sports.htm
Military and Veterans: http://nysdmv.com/military.htm
Organizations and Causes: http://nysdmv.com/org.htm
Colleges, Fraternities, and Sororities: http://nysdmv.com/col.htm
Professions: http://nysdmv.com/profpl8.htm
Emergency Services: http://nysdmv.com/emerg.htm
Counties and Regions of NYS: http://nysdmv.com/region.htm

Also in New York, a lot of the plates are restricted to where you live and what you do for a living. So cost and restrictions reduce the amount of 'specialty' plates on the road.

Brian

Also......

I just moved down to Virginia (metro Washington) for a job

Virginia and Maryland (I believe) are recorded as being the states with the most vanity or customized plates.

They also have special designs but not too familiar since I just moved here. You do see a lot of of 9/11 Virginia plates and in Maryland the farm ones.

D.C. I am yet to see a customized plate (expect for council members and members of congress)

Then of course in this area there are a ton of recently redesigned Diplomat plates.

Brian

We have 9 provinces in South Africa and each has their own identifier. 7 of the 9 have a convention of 3 letters, 3 digits and the province code, sometimes with the crest of the province between the digits and the province code. For example, in my province (Gauteng) you might see KRP254GP.

The Western Cape and KwaZulu Natal still use the old system that we all once had, with 2 or 3 letters identifying the town, then up to 6 digits, eg CA254181 for Cape Town, ND24559 for Durban.

All 9 provinces have personalised plates available and these are up to 7 characters plus the provincial identifier. Some charge more for less characters. My bike has one:

Quoting FlyMIA (Thread starter): And most countries just seem to have one type of plate for everyone.

Quoting FlyMIA (Thread starter): So why is it that Florida has all these different plates?

A cultural thing? Sort of like the bumper stickers?
Frankly I don't understand the urge to share with the world (which doesn't care in the first place) what my favorite hockey team is, where I go to school or whether I think trees are cool or people should choose life or whether I support the troops or just soccer. Although I admit I do find these two license plates funny... in a bit morbid way though.


Definitely targets the right audience...


A "gift"... from hell?

Quoting PlateMan (Reply 4): Virginia and Maryland (I believe) are recorded as being the states with the most vanity or customized plates. They also have special designs but not too familiar since I just moved here. You do see a lot of of 9/11 Virginia plates and in Maryland the farm ones. D.C.

Really? I live in DC and I agree there are only two types of DC plates the regular one and the one that says taxation without representation. But I have yet to Noticed many different VA or MD plates. I can only remember two different types of VA plates, the normal plate and the Jamestown plate.

Quoting FlyMIA (Reply 7): Really? I live in DC and I agree there are only two types of DC plates the regular one and the one that says taxation without representation. But I have yet to Noticed many different VA or MD plates. I can only remember two different types of VA plates, the normal plate and the Jamestown plate.

VA has 200 different types of plates per DMV website:
http://www.dmv.virginia.gov/webdoc/citizen/vehicles/plate_search.asp

Click find without any criterion - you get all possible plate designs.....

Current listing for New Mexico:
http://www.tax.state.nm.us/pubs/specplate.htm

The collegiate plates are a rip off in my opinion. $37 on top of the regular registration fee every time the plate is renewed. Sure, $25 of that $37 goes to the college, but damn. I was going to get the NMSU plate until I read the fine print. My registration fees are high enough already.

I forgot to add the plate available to scare the "North American Union" conspiracy theorists :

 

[Edited 2008-08-25 12:23:59]

[Edited 2008-08-25 12:25:05]

[Edited 2008-08-25 12:25:36]

Quoting FlyMIA (Reply 7): I can only remember two different types of VA plates, the normal plate and the Jamestown plate.

There are a ton of VA plates. Most are really similar to the base plate but add a logo or such.

Quoting PlateMan (Reply 4): Virginia and Maryland (I believe) are recorded as being the states with the most vanity or customized plates.

I was partially right. Virginia, New Hampshire, Illinois, Nevada and Montana have the most vanity plates, according to a recent survey. Texas has the least.

As I mentioned for NY, its pricey. Virginia only gets $10 for personalization.,

These are not special designs but play on words, personalizing them,

Read more here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2007-11-11-vanityplates_N.htm

Fair use from USA Today:
"Out of the 9.3 million personalized plates on the roads of America, about one in 10 are in Virginia....That's 16% of the plates issued by Virginia. New Hampshire came in second with nearly 14%. Illinois had about 13.4%, but that amounted to nearly 1.3 million plates, the most of any state."

Quoting PlateMan (Reply 4): Virginia and Maryland (I believe) are recorded as being the states with the most vanity or customized plates.

I was partially right. Virginia, New Hampshire, Illinois, Nevada and Montana have the most vanity (or personalized) plates.

For VA, it's a cost thing. Only $10.

Texas has the lest amount.

Fair use from the Associated Press:
"Out of the 9.3 million personalized plates on the roads of America, about one in 10 are in Virginia....That's 16 percent of the plates issued by Virginia. New Hampshire came in second with nearly 14 percent. Illinois had about 13.4 percent, but that amounted to nearly 1.3 million plates, the most of any state.

More here:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/11/12/vanity.plates.ap/index.html

License plates in Germany and Europe all look the same in the end. But of course Germany has exact regulations when it comes to special plates.

Standard plate (explanations from left to right):

- EU nationality identifier
- district or town identifier consisting of 1 to 3 characters
- upper badge for general inspection located on the rear plate and emissions inspection on the front plate
- lower badge of origin (consisting of the federal state's coat of arms and the admission office' name)
- registration code consisting of one or two characters and up to four characters



Government agency plate:



Seasonal plate (no valid insurance during the months not listed on the plate, therefore strictly forbidden to move the vehicle!):



Historical vehicle plate:



Red letter plate (for test drives, shipping of verhicles etc.):



Tax-exempt plate:



Short-time registration plate (valid for maximal 5 days!):



International short-time registration plate:



Diplomat plate:



German Federal Armed Forces plate:



German Federal Police plate:



Insurance plate (for small mokicks and scooters):




Yep, a lot of different plates, but hey it's Germany, what else did you expect? Efficient, clean and somewhat overregulated and meticulous.

Quoting Marquis (Reply 13): German Federal Police plate:

Just as note: the plate prefix BP, now used by the Bundespolizei, was used initially by the Deutsche Bundespost as well until the 1990s, and I believe they stopped using it by the time the Deutsche Bundespost had split into Deutsche Post AG, Deutsche Telekom AG, and Postbank.

I love Arizona's license plates.



This one is relatively new!

the worst part of moving to CA was surrending this...

Kazakhstani License Plates are boring. No national identity. Just figures and letters.



First figure is for region, in my case "A" means city of Almaty.
Then comes three figures from 001 to 999. But I believe they've banned "beautiful figures" like 777 or 007 to fight corruption, because there's no official way to choose number you like.
And then you have two letters for company cars and three letters for private.

In addition to personalized plates, WA has lots of specialty plates:

http://www.dol.wa.gov/vehicleregistration/specialdesign.html

We inherited the old British system of two or three letters, followed by four or three numbers, but ran out of combinations in 1986 so a new system had to be devised.

It consists of the year of manufacture of the vehicle, followed by the initial letter of the issuing authority for major cities, eg D=Dublin, C=Cork, G=Galway and W=Waterford. All the counties have two letters, usually consisting of the first and last letter of the county. There are exceptions, of course, where duplication exists. Irish speakers didn't approve, of course, as they felt the initials should represent the Irish version, but since practically nobody in the country speaks the language the original proposals held. They were given a sop by having the name of the issuing authority in Irish in smaller letters above the registration.

The last digits are the numerical sequence in which the vehicle was registered in that year.

Michigan retired their legendary white-on-blue plate for an even more horribly generic blue-on-white plate for their standard issue, but the new graphic issue isn't nearly as ugly:



Standard issue: http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,1607,7-127-1585_1595_1607---,00.html
Veteran Plates: http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,1607,7-127-1585_1595_1598---,00.html (for just about every American armed conflict known to man)
Fundraiser plates: http://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,1607,7-127-1585_1595_9026---,00.html

The new Nuevo Leon Plates which were introduced in January 2008. In the left had corner the have have the State number (in alphabetical order Nuevo Leon is 19 of 32 states). Above they have the type of vehicle, in this case "Transporte Privado Automovil". On the right corner there is the logo of the "Secretaria de Caminos y Transportes". I have never seen the bar code been used for anything, so I don't know what that is for. On the left corner there is the Nuevo Leon government logo, which says "Estado de Progreso" below the "NL". In the bottom center it says "Nuevo Leon, Mexico" in Red and Green.

The pictures in the background are the two most important Monterrey landmarks; "El Cerro de la Silla" which is a very high mountain in the Monterrey area that has the shape of a horse saddle at its peak. It also has "Fundidora" which is a steel factory from the 19th century that was turned into a museum and conference center. The government built many tourist attractions around "Fundidora" such as; Arena Monterrey, Auditorio Coca Cola, Paseo Santa Lucia, Parque Plaza Sesamo, etc. This area was place to the "Forum Internacional de las Culturas" last year.

The numbering on the plates currently is SAA-12-34, it used to be RZZ-12-34 until they ran out of "R" registrations, the other day I saw a car with SEX-12-34.

In Mexico license plates change about every three years; because the government makes money as there is a 50 usd charge for the new plates. I personally hate this, because it's just the government cheating money out of the people.

New Nuevo Leon plates:



Old Nuevo Leon Plates (2004-2007)



Older Nuevo Leon Pates (2000-2003)



Even Older (1998-2000)



All of the plates from about 1990-1998 where like this, these are not from Nuevo Leon, but from Tabasco. Just change the "TAB MEX" to "NL MEX" and the W to R and its the same thing. The plates where federal issued, instead of state issued like it currently is.



My favorite Mexican plate design, from Mexico City (Distrito Federal), these plates where issued from 2001-2007. Currently there is a new design, but it is only given to newly registered cars, so cars get to keep there old plates, unlike in Nuevo Leon. These plates have different numbering, 123-ABC insted of the ABC-12--34 in the rest of the country.

Croatian ones are pretty simple - just a city identifier and sequential numbers.

The format is ZG {coat of arms} 1234-AB, where ZG is the code for Zagreb for example. They started out with ZG 100-A, and when they get to ZG 999-A, they go over to ZG 100-B. Likewise, ZG 999-Z goes over to ZG 100-AA and ZG 999-ZZ goes to ZG 1000-A and so on... And the limit is pretty much defined by the number of cars in the city. In most cities in Croatia, the 123-AB format is enough, but here in ZAG we've already reached 1000-DP plates...

The numbering logic is pretty much "first come, first serve", but you can have custom numbers and letters - within the general format. Some companies have their name replacing the serial numbers (eg. ZG COMPANY-2), but generally only the prescribed format is allowed.

Quoting Marquis (Reply 13): Red letter plate (for test drives, shipping of verhicles etc.):

and I though that only Belgium had red letters - after 3 years here I still havent figured all the Belgian plates out - most are red letters ( older ones in format XYZ 123 and newer ones in format 123 XYZ ) but there are also green ones ( which I think are dealer plates ) and blue ones which I have never figured out ( BWest - if you read this thread please explain !) and of course thanks to being the EU capital many many many "CD" plates which do not ,as I originally thought , stand for "Cross Dresser" but rather ( I believe ) for "Corps Diplomatique"

My favorite:

But not 'favorite' enough for me to pay to have one. I figure if the association wants me to advertise their event, they'll pay me.

The regular BC licence plate (as on my car):



The new plate (that costs $30) promoting the 2010 Olympics:



And finally the veteran's plate:

The current plate for Texas:




This is the new design voted on late last year that will go into circulation some time in 2009:




The new design looks SWEET IMO!!! 

Quoting PlateMan (Reply 4): You do see a lot of of 9/11 Virginia plates

Yeah, I actually collect a few licence plates and hang them on my wall. I bought a "9/11 Fight Terrorism" collector plate a few years back.

Quoting PlateMan (Reply 11): Virginia, New Hampshire, Illinois, Nevada and Montana have the most vanity plates, according to a recent survey. Texas has the least.

Really? That seems odd as I've been to the Texas DMV website and have seen their list of "specialty plates" that they offer. It was quite extensive with practically every major university, sports team, military branch, military medal winner, nature, education, special interest, etc in the state represented... It was amazing...

Here are a few Ontario ones, they are pretty plain.

The current one.



One I have never seen before.



A Maple Leafs one.



Basically trucks the numbers are black instead of Blue and dealer plates have black numbers and a yellow background.

Here is the current design of Colorado's license plate:



Here was the previous design:



And here is the current special design license plate:



Since I'm Lebanese, I'll share Lebanon's license plate which is available in two aspect ratios depending on the car:





License plates are bilingual in Arabic and French (Liban being the French spelling of Lebanon). The letter by the number represents where the vehicle is registered, for example, B represents Beirut (Beyrouth in French). The Arabic word below the Cedar tree in the blue background on the left means "private" meaning it's a private vehicle and not a government vehicle.

Illinois old plates - 1983 -2001



Illinois new plates - 2001-Current



Leo

Down in Florida, I've always been fond of this one:



...but we've never gotten one (maybe if it was, "Save the Labradors" or something, instead).

We did, however have a Challenger memorial license plate back in the 90s for our Grand Cherokee. It looked like this:



Totally legit... until they replaced it with something less colorful (unfortunately, it was no longer solely a Challenger memorial, either):



A few plates I saw on the DMV website that I've never seen on the road before but laughed out loud at were these gems:


Way to advertise!


A manatee on a license plate is just funny.


Absolutely, kids deserve justice... as well as a license plate to inform the uninformed.

Quoting Mdsh00 (Reply 1): P.S. I can't stand it how some states put their website on the plate itself.

Absolutely. I cringe every time I see "myflorida.com" on a license plate. Suck it, DMV!

Since I go to school in Pennsylvania, here are their license plates

Old 2000-2005



New 2005 - Current



Leo

Quoting Andz (Reply 5):

In KZN, the letters at the beginning are N (for Natal), then 1 or 2 letters determinging the town. So Durban's are ND 1234, Pinetown (where my in-laws are) is NPN 1234...

One peculiarity of the UK is that we have white plates for the front, and yellow for the back of the car. And trailers / caravans are considered an extension of the same vehicle, so carry the same plate as the towing vehicle. So trucks towing different trailers at different times have to carry a spare rear plate to affix to the rear of the trailer.

signol

Here's our current plate series in Alberta... however, I believe sometime in 2009 these are being replaced by a newly designed plate as we are just about out of letter number combinations, not a surprise considering these have been around for 25 years now.

Standard Issue:


Veteran:

Quoting Lfutia (Reply 32): Since I go to school in Pennsylvania, here are their license plates

Here are some of PA's Specialty Plates; note, some of the designs have since been discontinued:

http://www.worldlicenceplates.com/jpglps/USA_PA_SI.jpg

Swiss plates begin with the 2-letter code for each of the 26 cantons (states) where the vehicle is registered, e.g.ZH = Zurich, GE = Geneva, BE = Bern. The rear plates have the Swiss white cross crest on the left and the crest of the canton on the right. Depending on the area where the plate is to be mounted you can obtain rear plates in the more common horizontal format with everything on one line, or in a more rectangular shape roughly the same size as plates in US/Canada. Examples of rear plates in the two shapes.





Switzerland is slightly unusual in using much smaller plates on the front than on the rear. The front plates also lack the crests. Example of a front plate.





There are various other plates for special purposes (diplomats, car dealers, military vehicles etc.)

In South Australia, we have the following plates:

General Issue:



The other ones are:








The V8 Supercars one:



AFL (Power and Crows):




Numeric plates..their prices are crazy, some sell as high as $25,000! This one sold for $20,400.



I still don't get what's so damn special about this!

Personalized:



R & S Series plates (for older cars)



Corporate plates:



Custom plates (these have a wide variety of colour combinations).



I like the Victorian Euro-style plates and of course the F1 Grand Prix plate:

In Iceland we have quite boring plates:



This is how the plates were until 1989.

Letter, space, and one to five numbers.

A letter stands for the municipalities. Those are:

A - Akureyri (Eyjafjarðarsýsla)
B - Vatneryri (Barðarstrandarsýsla)
D - Dalasýsla (Búðardalur)
E - Akranes
F - Siglufjörður
G - Hafnarfjörður (Kjósarsýsla)
H - Blönduós (Húnavatnssýsla)
I - Ísafjörður (Ísafjarðarsýsla)
J - Keflavik Int’l Airport
K - Sauðárkrókur (Skagafjarðarsýsla)
N - Neskaupstaður
Ø - Reykjanesskagi Peninsula
P - Húsavík (Þingeyjarsýsla)
R - Reykjavík
S - Seyðisfjörður (Norður-Múlasýsla)
U - Eskifjörður (Suður-Múlasýsla)
V - Vestmannaeyjar (Westmann Islands)
X - Selfoss (Árnessysla)
Y - Kópavogur
Z - Vík í Mýrdal (Skaftafellssýsla)

---

In 1989, were changed to white background with blue letters and numbers, and the only thing binding a plate to a municipality was a sticker, where “IS” is on this plate (read below photo). Two letters, the year when the car had to be checked next, and three numbers:



Around the year 2000, the stickers were not added anymore, and in 2004 (IIRC) the “IS” sign was painted onto new plates, and added as a sticker to older post-1989 plates.

In the second half of 2007, the setup was changed to “Two letters, the year when the car had to be checked next, a letter and two numbers”:



---

People in Iceland have the choice to buy a private number plate (for $240/165€/£135) for their cars. It can consist up to six letters, numbers, or spaces.

Examples: DÖKKUR, ZYZTUR, SYZTUR, ZYSTUR, SYSTUR, MÁMÍMÓ, M3.
Note that the plates are not the car’s real registration. The car using the plate below could very well be registered “UA 816”:



---

The presidential cars have got plates like this, with numbers ranging from 1 and up:



---

Embassy cars are registered in this format: Two letters, letter for the country, two numbers. Green plate with black numbers.

---

Cars that qualify for using cheaper Diesels have yellow backgrounds and black letters.

---

Tax free cars have red backgrounds black letters.

---

The police, the ambulances and fire stations have normal or yellow number plates. The type of registration is standard.

I wish the UK would adopt personlised vanity plates, if they did, then i would have:-


AZZKIKR 1

But at the moment i'm just stuck with F*58 DAN

*intentionally blanked out