Best and Worst U.S. License Plates

[Andrew T.]

I hate California's, it's just so plain and generic. The older gold on yellow version was better because it was just as generic but at least had some color to it. The best CA license plate ever was the short-lived "sunset" one, which I think dates to either the 1970s or 80s.

Said design debuted in December 1982 as an extra-fee issue, then was briefly shunted into place for all motorists in January 1987 after legislation dictated that all new license plates be reflectorized.  Unfortunately, it didn't last very long after that:  The state reverted to a comparably lame-looking embossed design in late 1987 to cut costs.

I don't know why everyone complains about New York's new plates. The color combination is just fine, and I like how they're simple and free of clutter. Where exactly is the sense in cramming the plate full of all sorts of artwork that's too small to be made out by other motorists? I was never really a fan of the previous design, although the statue of liberty design from the 80's and 90's was nice.

From what I've seen, most of the negative sentiment is focused on the lower contrast of the blue-on-orange scheme (never mind that the previous issue's blue-on-white colors could be readily confused with literally dozens of other states, and if anything the state name is easier to read than it was before), or is residual non-design-related frustration at the expectation of paying a plate replacement fee (never mind that the new design wound up being issued to new registrants only).  Personally, I think the design is a step up...and if it utilized the wider die set from the 1980s, it would be perfect.

[Stephane Dumas]

The worst design licence plate I know is the one of Quebec, except some light changes, we got the same basic generic design since 1979 >_< http://www.worldlicenseplates.com/world/CN_QUEB.html http://canplates.com/quebec.html compared to it, the ones of Ontario and New Brunswick have more "pizzazz".

[bdmoss88]

Actually just the number 2 = Mobile County.

Just the number 2 doesn't apply, as you also have Colbert, Dallas, and other counties in the C and D range that also start with 2.  Hence why you need to look at the second character.  A letter (such as "A" in the previous example) would mean Mobile County.  A number means a different county.

I probably should have said the number 2 followed by a letter = Mobile County.

In Alabama all counties have a number followed by a letter followed by a sequential number. You start with 1A00000, and after 1A99999 you go to 1B00000. The counties are numbered pretty much alphabetical except for the three largest counties population wise. Jefferson County(Birmingham) is 1, Mobile is 2 and Montgomery is 3. The rest, 4 through 67, are numbered alphabetically, Autauga(4) through Winston(67). They gave the three large counties 1,2 and 3 so there was enough room for the extra digit in the sequential number so they wouldn't run out so quickly. I'm not sure why they didn't give Madison County(Huntsville) number 4 and go from there as they ran out of sequential numbers and started using 80 for the first number.

[Al Cyone]

I don't know why everyone complains about New York's new plates. The color combination is just fine, and I like how they're simple and free of clutter.

New Jersey has the right idea by keeping it simple, but they have got to change their color scheme. As it stands, they look like piss stains.

I agree. The new NY plates have a nice "retro" look and there's still a good mix on the roads for those who prefer the former design.

As for putting the county name (or code) on the plate, it may work in more "homogeneous" states but I'm pretty sure no one from upstate NY would want to park their car in NYC (not that they'd want to anyway).

And as for NJ plates, their chief asset is that they alert you to the presence of NJ drivers.

[Ian]

For the new New York plates, I guess I'm just used to the older design with the falls and the city skyline.

[realjd]

I don't know why everyone complains about New York's new plates. The color combination is just fine, and I like how they're simple and free of clutter. Where exactly is the sense in cramming the plate full of all sorts of artwork that's too small to be made out by other motorists? I was never really a fan of the previous design, although the statue of liberty design from the 80's and 90's was nice.

My big complaint? Florida uses yellow tags for cop/government vehicles. NYers come to Florida in large numbers. Now if I'm coming upon an Impala with yellow plates driving down the road, it's much harder to tell if it's a cop trolling for speeders or just another NYer. It's obnoxious.

[jwolfer]

I don't know why everyone complains about New York's new plates. The color combination is just fine, and I like how they're simple and free of clutter. Where exactly is the sense in cramming the plate full of all sorts of artwork that's too small to be made out by other motorists? I was never really a fan of the previous design, although the statue of liberty design from the 80's and 90's was nice.

My big complaint? Florida uses yellow tags for cop/government vehicles. NYers come to Florida in large numbers. Now if I'm coming upon an Impala with yellow plates driving down the road, it's much harder to tell if it's a cop trolling for speeders or just another NYer. It's obnoxious.

I also hate the Impala with the Choose Life tags.  But FHP has a bunch of ummarked charges w standard issue tags.  They always fool me

[SteveG1988]

I am suprized nobody brought up North Dakota. 1992-Now with the same exact plate design, only change is the sticker designs over the years.





Only issue i have with it is the non-standard bottom placement for the state name, due to plate frames covering it up.

Also i like the Delaware license plate design, it is nice and retro.



Anybody else miss the old blue/off white NJ 1980s license plates, perfectly legible, all of it embossed.

[KillerTux]

Just got the new plates and up close and I am not really liking them Might just get the MD farm plates.

[agentsteel53]

why do they have 2012 plates already?  it's not even 2011! 

[mightyace]

^^^

Probably the same reason I got a BicenTENNial plate when I moved to Tennessee in 1995 even though the anniversary was in 1996, they changed to the bicentennial plate on the plate cycle closest to the event.

[Tom]

My favorite license plates are the 2 Michigan plates with the Mackinac Bridge on them, Kentucky, and Mississippi's Butterfly plates, and any plates with Old Glory on them.

These are 2 of my favorites:
http://www.whitworthfamily.org/images/2004-ProudToBeAmerican-01.jpg
http://users.exis.net/~moore/fl-vet.jpg

[thenetwork]

I just saw the new New Mexico (Centennial???) plates on a passing car today.  Gold-on-Turquoise Blue with some white lettering and their famous sun symbol in gold & red.  It sure beats the hell out of those red-on-neon-yellow and balloon plates.  I don't think I have ever seen any state plates with a turquoise blue background.

[Crazy Volvo Guy]

Best: New York gold plate.  It's about damn time we get back to simple, solid-color backgrounds with complimentary opposite EMBOSSED text.

Worst:  I don't have one particular worst.  Any state that's gone to non-embossed plates gets tossed in my 'worst' catergory.

[Andrew T.]

I just saw the new New Mexico (Centennial???) plates on a passing car today.  Gold-on-Turquoise Blue with some white lettering and their famous sun symbol in gold & red.  It sure beats the hell out of those red-on-neon-yellow and balloon plates.  I don't think I have ever seen any state plates with a turquoise blue background.

Here's a picture of the New Mexico centennial plate.  It's a very distinctive design, and I like that...but I saw several of these in use on a drive through the southwest earlier this year, and the contrast between the colors was so bad that the numbers were practically unreadable at a distance.  This was in daylight, too:  I'd hate to think of how they look at at night, when the dark non-reflective characters and light reflective background cancel each other out.

Interestingly, West Virginia dealer and motorcycle plates used to have the same unusual color scheme; give or take a shade:

[Michael in Philly]

Mine.

Best: New York gold plate.  It's about damn time we get back to simple, solid-color backgrounds with complimentary opposite EMBOSSED text.

Worst:  I don't have one particular worst.  Any state that's gone to non-embossed plates gets tossed in my 'worst' catergory.

Heartily agreed.  Cutesy graphics have gotten way out of hand.  With very rare exceptions like that greenish/grayish Tennessee one.

[lamsalfl]

now available in Louisiana:  



http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/10/louisiana_bicentennial_license_1.html
Bicentennial plate will be issued to vehicles newly registered through December 31, 2012.

[CentralCAroadgeek]

Sorry to be reviving, but I would like to share my thoughts about license plates. See, I'm a big license plate enthusiast and collect them for a hobby.

First of all, it's so hard to list my favorite plates, so I'm just going to randomly list the regular plates I like:

Best:
~ Arizona (nice desert scene)
~ current California (simple, elegant, looks nice with "dmv.ca.gov" at the bottom)
~ sunset California (just looks very California)
~ Colorado (classic)
~ Idaho (the flat makes it look even better in my opinion)
~ Nebraska (love the new plate)
~ New Mexico centennial (unique turquoise color)
~ New York (Empire Gold sure looks nice)

Worst:
~ pre-script California (late 2AAA000 series to early 3AAA000 series)
~ current Florida (don't like how the state name is written)
~ smiley face Kentucky (just looks plain ugly)
~ New Jersey (I call the color "pee yellow")

That's all I have for now.

[formulanone]

As a Floridian, the standard-issue Florida plates just get uglier and uglier. Design peaked around 1990 or so, but someone had to get cute and inverse the state outline and embossing, and it all went downhill with the "peach" that never looked much like an orange; it looks even worse with vanity plates with more than three consecutive characters on them. I prefer the simple designs, although there's a few of the specialty plates that get the job done in a visually orderly fashion.

To be honest, I think the county stamp is useless; George Carlin had a comment on that which was spot on. I actually preferred the Sunshine State stamping instead, although using my Alachua county plate was something I enjoyed for a few years out of the area just because the numbering sequence was different and the county was something different. With all these recent don't-text-and-drive campaigns, hopefully all these website footers will become history.

I have a soft spot for Dealer and/or Transportation plates, because they're generally very simple.

[SidS1045]

As for putting the county name (or code) on the plate, it may work in more "homogeneous" states but I'm pretty sure no one from upstate NY would want to park their car in NYC (not that they'd want to anyway).

New York plates, until sometime in the mid-1970s, used codes for the issuing county.  I've never seen a full list of which codes went with which counties, but I'm sure some LP maven has one somewhere.  When they went over to three-numbers-three-letters in 1973, and phased out the earlier plates, that's when the county designations went away.

For example, a plate my grandfather had:  8K-4405.  The "8K" was a code for Kings county.

[YankeesFan]

as a New Jersey resident, i absolutely hate our license plates (and are stupid highway shields for that matter)...does anyone have any NJ license plates that they designed themselves? (trying to see some ideas)

[1995hoo]

I've never understood the idea of putting the county on the license plate because it seems inefficient to me, especially nowadays when the cops are going to run your plate through a computer anyway. I assume if you live in a state that issues county-specific plates and you move to another county it means you have to get the plate reissued and probably pay a fee, and I gather from some of the posts in this thread that in some states you would be required to get a new plate number (assuming you don't have a personalized plate) so as not to mess up their numbering schemes. That seems like a massive waste of money and of DMV workers' time.

With the rise of specialty plates and custom designs (Virginia alone has over 180 different plate designs) I find it impractical to try to consider all the ones I might like or dislike. But here are a few. I suppose the Canadian and Mexican ones violate the "U.S. license plates" theme, but I'm not the first there:

Best:
Virginia's original Jamestown plate honoring the town's 400th anniversary (the one with the ship on the right side)–I have this design on both of my cars
Hawaii current design (simple, distinctive, easy to read)
Alaska 2006 design with the printed "Alaska" and "The Last Frontier," both of which I think look cleaner than the embossed versions; I don't like the earlier version with the sticker wells.
Northwest Territories. The bear is just cool. I saw one "in the field" at the car park at the trailhead to Western Brook Pond in Newfoundland in August 1982. My parents have one they bought at an antique store somewhere. It's over the door in their kitchen.
Quintana Roo 2002 passenger issue that has a background showing El Castillo at Tulum. Never seen one on the road in the USA and doubt I ever will, but I've driven plenty of cars with this plate on trips to that part of Mexico.


Worst:
Virginia standard issue (boring)
Maryland standard issue (ditto)
Alaska Gold Rush Centennial because it's too busy. It's unclear what the line of people is unless you're viewing it from up close.
Florida plates that say "MyFlorida.com" because it's tacky
DC's plates, especially the "Taxation Without Representation" ones. You're not a state. Get over it. Also, the "See Window Sticker" decals are embarrassing.
Idaho, but only because of the words "Famous Potatoes." Otherwise I kind of like the current design, but I roll my eyes at that particular slogan.
New York's plates from the latter half of the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s. I recall they had a box where you'd put an expiration decal, but then they never issued any decals, so it looked silly.


My all-time favorite plate has nothing to do with the design–because the Europeans have no choice in that matter–and everything to do with the letter combination. Picture taken at the Airbus car park in Bristol in April 2007. I know the guy parking the Porsche (his plate is a European-style way of displaying the letters G-BBDG, the registration for a preproduction Concorde on display at Brooklands). But that's not why I took the picture. Note the Nissan to the right. The second character on the plate is a "1," but it doesn't read that way.

[agentsteel53]

I remember seeing a "QR MEX" plate in New Mexico in 2006.  Never seen a NWT outside of NWT, Alberta, Yukon, or BC ... but the other day I did see a Yukon plate down here in sunny San Diego!

a Nunavut plate would be quite the sighting.

I recently spotted a yellow German plate here in San Diego (something I never saw in Europe); my assumption is that the car was plated for export in Germany, and had not yet been registered in the US.  

but by far the most out-of-place plate I've seen was a Florida plate in ... Poland!

[1995hoo]

I've seen a Puerto Rico plate several times on I-395 in Virginia and DC, but the weirdest one I've seen has been a Guam plate two or three times, also on I-395. The first time I saw that was one of the few times I was glad for a traffic jam because it allowed me to pull close enough to make out what the unfamiliar design was.

Also saw a Yukon plate when we were waiting on line at the ferry terminal in Port-aux-Basques to head back to Nova Scotia at the end of our stay in Newfoundland in 1982, but to me that was less out-of-place than the Puerto Rico and Guam plates because you can at least drive from the Yukon to Newfoundland. (The Yukon plate I saw in Juneau in 2007 didn't strike me as the least bit odd, even though I only saw one.)

[agentsteel53]

I do not recall ever seeing a Puerto Rico plate.  I do remember seeing Belize and Guatemala plates but do not remember if I saw those in the US or in Mexico.  

I've only been to extreme northwest Mexico (Baja and Sonora), so even there those Central American plates are quite unusual.

in Europe, the farthest-away plate, apart from that Florida, which I recall seeing was a Kazakhstan truck.