A Lighter View
What vanity plates really say
By K.E.H. Stagg

Feb. 19, 2009

Personalized license plates intrigue me. The owner names are pretty easy to figure out, although I amuse myself by guessing what the initials stand for. “HS HS” becomes—in my mind—the Snodgrasses: Hector and Hermione, Hiram and Hildegarde, or Homer and Hepzibah. It couldn’t possibly stand for something normal like Henry and Helen Smith. Whenever “HIS V” and “HER V” are parked side by side, I always crack up: his V is a Corvette; hers is a Volkswagen bug. “FARMKID” obviously grew up milking the cows or baling hay.

The school and sports references are also fairly straightforward: the owner of “LYON 96” obviously graduated from Penn State in 1996; “RSOX-GRL” clearly is a fan of Boston’s baseball team; while “ADAM 22” is a reference to the late Adam Petty of racing family fame and not, as I first thought, a variation on the old television program from my childhood, Adam 12.

Some plates that might otherwise prove confusing are solved by additional clues such as the license plate holder or bumper stickers touting the Mets, Millersville University, Labrador retrievers, Dillsburg Youth Softball Association or Iron Maiden, just to name a few possibilities.

The plates that I nearly drive off the road trying to riddle, however, are the statement plates: “1LVWIDW.” The driver is a man, so is he saying that he loves a widow, or he is a love widow (in which case, it should be “widower”)? And “CHOOCH.” Is that an abbreviation of choo-choo or somebody’s nickname? “DAD2800” makes me wonder just how many kids that man has, and how in the world he keeps them all straight. Is this like that old Dr. Seuss-y book about the woman with 23 sons all named Dave so she wouldn’t get them confused, only it backfired and they trampled her so she wished she’d named them Soggy Muff, Buffalo Bill, Biffalo Buff, and other distinctive ways of differentiating them?

If it’s true that a car is a reflection of the driver’s self-image, and the extra money spent on a license plate that makes a statement only reinforces the driver’s personal image, what is the driver of the Lexus whose plate says “YBM” getting at? At times like that I wish my own license plate read, “Y NOT?” But I don’t think you can get symbols, so I can’t answer his question with a question. Still, I can’t help wondering. Maybe I’ll print up a sign and hold it up in my windshield next time he zooms by.