In the glorious State of Washington, our license plate numerations have recently changed. For a long time we were three numbers and then three letters, but evidently they ran out of configurations so now it's three letters followed by four numbers (with no dash).
Well. When I first realized this had happened, I started noticing license plates. Everywhere. And in my mind, I pinged the time-frame of the licensing of the car. For example, my car, bought in January 2008, is an XEG. So I see a lot of Xs, Ys, Zs, and that means they are all after me. I suppose in 2008 and 2009 we went through the rest of the alphabet, and in 2010 they started with the AAA1111s.
But not only this, I kept looking for older licenses. I'd see Ss every once in awhile; Shane's new (used) car is a U. Once I saw a P and about peed in my pants. And then the other day -- not once, not twice, but three times -- I saw an L. WOW! Can you imagine how old an L car is?
The lesson here is that wow, we as a people go through cars like we go through underwear. I am shocked at how the vast majority of the cars are after X -- meaning they are newer than 2008. Really? We all bought a new (or used, new to us) car in the last two years? That's insane!
Tangent: This reminds me of when I was in college, I'd go for a run in the morning and pass lots of cars parked on the street. I'd play a guessing game with myself -- are they automatic or manual? I was obsessive about it! Every day on my morning runs I'd be pegging transmissions. License plates are simply my newest vehicle identification hangup. Weird.
Anyway, Shane says sometimes the state makes you re-license, but I'm not sure how often that happens. For the most part, it appears no one keeps their cars for awhile.
This just in! I found this article on the Seattle Times from 2007 that talks about this! I missed it the first time around or of course I would have been fascinated. It says plates are re-issued every 7 years (hmmm not sure those L people are obeying that law), there are lots of three-letter combos they can't use (I hadn't thought about that!), and they estimated they'd run out of configurations in July 2009. I hadn't started seeing the changes until recently, so I think they got some more time.
Anyway, now that I've spread the gospel of license plates maybe you'll notice them all, too. And become obsessed like me.
4 comments:
Haha. I just had to get a new one. I traded my AWESOME RQN (rockin') for ABW. Meh.
You can actually pay like $15 a year to keep your old plate if you are so attached.
I remember with my first car having to trade in my EFG license plate for a PVV. I got rid of the car 4 months later. It lost its alphabet power. :) PVV was nothing to me.
This time I think I'll be keeping my car.
So did they force you to get a new plate??? But WHY? RQN is pretty cool!
They just hand you a new one. You don't really get a choice. My dad asked them when he paid the $15 to keep RIC (they call my mom's car Ricky) and they told him it had something to do with the license plate letters staying legible for state patrol cars or something like that. It sounds bogus to me.
My other question is: why 3 letters and 4 numbers. Wouldn't the range of possibilities be MUCH greater with 4 letters and 3 numbers???
We keep our cars long enough to go through a number of plates. We're on the second on the Camaro and I've lost track on the Jimmy (a 1992)! And the reason they gave me (cause I questioned them!) is the reflectivity wears off--so yeah the policeman can't read your plates. I think it's just to charge you extra and make a few more bucks.
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