It’s not often people have anything nice to say about their department of motor vehicles. On The Simpsons, sisters Patty and Selma, who both work at Springfield’s DMV, tell their nephew Bart that some days they don’t let the line move at all. “We call those days weekdays.”
But my local Virginia DMV isn’t quite like that. An information booth is staffed by someone friendly. The waiting time is acceptable. The facilities are clean. In fact, there is only one thing I find troubling: For just $10 per year, residents can have their very own personalized license plates. Now you might think this a good thing–what better way for the citizenry to get creative and express themselves?
As it turns out, self-expression is overrated.
To begin with, most of us don’t feel any particular compulsion to put a witty message on our license plates, so the extra fee is enough to deter us. We wait for our tag with its randomly assigned letters and numbers and hope for something catchy. But what if it isn’t?
In high school, my friend Steve drove a Jeep Grand Cherokee with the license plate GEY-90T. When he pulled into the school parking lot, I would yell out, “Hey guys, look who’s coming. It’s gay ninety-tee! What’s up, gay ninety-tee?” Over and over again. Yes, I admit it was crude. It was also high school. (As a brief aside, that license plate ended up at my house. Steve gave it to me after his Cherokee’s unlikely demise: It was stolen in Boston and used to smash into a Filene’s Basement–all caught on video, which made the news. The suspects then incinerated the jeep, and all that was left was GEY-90T.)
But for a mere $10, you can remove any and all risk from the process. According to Melanie Stokes of the Virginia DMV’s communications office, of the 7.7 million active plates in the commonwealth, more than 1 million are personalized (resulting in over $9 million in income to the state). In fact, a recent study by the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators reveals more drivers in Virginia have vanity plates as a percentage of total drivers (16 percent) than any other state in the union. Last year alone Virginia issued approximately 203,000 personalized plates.
And yet my reaction upon seeing these works of self-expression is not normally amusement. Mostly, it’s bewilderment or irritation. Vanity plates are rarely as clever or fitting as the ones we see in popular culture: Remember the Ferrari 250 GT California in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with the license plate NRVOUS? Or the annoying MY PRSHE on the Porsche 911 driven by the equally annoying Bill Lumbergh in Office Space? And then there was ASSMAN, belonging to a proctologist in Seinfeld.
Of course the latter would have been rejected by the Virginia DMV, which operates a 12-person “word” committee to decide the fate of questionable plates. Some are brought to its attention by offended drivers. Others are flagged by a computer system containing a database of more than 6,000 unacceptable word-number combinations. Over the years, as noted in the press, recalled plates have included the undeniably insulting (ZYKLON B, the poison gas used in concentration camps during the Holocaust) as well as the debatably offensive (POOFTER, 2 DYKES, JAP JUNK, and a few combinations involving the letters SUX). You can try your own combination online to see what works. At the moment, OU812, as in the Van Halen album, is taken, but both HRC SUX and KILL GOP are still available. (I am reminded of my high school algebra teacher who in his youth wanted the license plate LSD. Instead he was forced to settle for LDS–likely declaring to others he was a proud Mormon.)
Some Virginia residents, including a colleague of mine, use their initials as their license plates, which is fine by me. Many plate aficionados strive for as few characters as possible, such as A1. But a good number of vanity plates tempt you to pull alongside the car and ask the driver, “Is that really the best you could come up with?” I recall one saying TWO 2 GO. Where are you going? Cornyville?
I recently spotted a car with the license plate BE GAY. Not that we should jump to any conclusions. Perhaps the owner wants us to be happy. Or maybe he or she is a fan of golfer Notah Begay. But I’m betting this is instead a proud statement of orientation for all the world to see and urging all the world to be, and for only $10 a year.
We’ve come such a long way since GEY-90T.
VICTORINO MATUS
