There is one corner of the country whose license plates remain to be scrubbed. It has eleven states, and because the District of Columbia plate travels with notoriety—there are more Washingtonians than there are people from Wyoming—it has one district. (Now’s probably the time to address why we don’t include all the tribal plates in our rankings and brackets, the answer to which is that there are simply too many of them for us to effectively handle that. There are dozens and dozens of tribal plates in this country, and we’d love to give them their due, but we just don’t know how to do it well. Sorry to anyone we disappoint with this. Please send us your own rankings of them. Honestly. We want to know.)
If you missed what’s going on here, we made a terrible mistake, and we’re working to correct it. Our goal? Make sure we know what the standard license plate looks like in each of the 50 states. Once we’ve achieved it, we’ll rank those plates, and then we’ll do License Plate Bracket III.
We’ve gone through the Western plates, the Midwestern plates, and the South-and-South-Adjacent plates. All that’s left is the Northeast.
Washington, D.C.
No changes here in the last couple years. Though thinking about how they added the word “End” in 2017, I wonder if we’ll soon get an addendum: “We really mean it!”
Maryland
No changes here either, sadly.
Delaware
Delaware continues to crush it.
New Jersey
New Jersey continues to have this license plate be its standard license plate.
Pennsylvania
Still the same plate here. Very straightforward about their plates, the Mid-Atlantic.
New York
Ok, here we get a change. New one from New York since we last scrubbed, and while I liked the old one, I also find this one pleasant. More on that when we rank them, but this is one of the biggest license plate developments nationally in these last few years.
Connecticut
It’s been around a long time, and as far as we know, it’s not currently going anywhere.
Rhode Island
Get your biggest flathead screwdriver ready, because Rhode Island’s got a new standard license plate. Should start appearing on cars within the next two months or so. Update on the classic theme of the wave.
Massachusetts
Not going anywhere, it doesn’t seem.
Vermont
*pumps fist*
New Hampshire
Same one here as well.
Maine
Usually, a plate as busy as this one gets changed rather quickly. In Maine, it’s lasted. Respect.
**
That does it for our scrub this year. Unless there’s been huge license plate news in the last week, we’re caught up. We’ll roll out the rankings sometime in these next few days, and we’re hoping right now to start License Plate Bracket III voting on Tuesday, July 5th. More to come.
**
Image Credits
- Washington, D.C.: District of Columbia DMV
- Maryland: Wikipedia user Zcarstvnz (link to license)
- Delaware: State of Delaware
- New Jersey: Wikipedia user ‘Thankful to be me 515’ (link to license)
- Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Department of Motor Vehicles
- New York: New York Department of Motor Vehicles
- Connecticut: Wikipedia user Jaycarlcooper (link to license)
- Rhode Island: RI Department of Motor Vehicles
- Massachusetts: Wikipedia users Zcarstvnz and Dickelbers (link to license)
- Vermont: Wikipedia user Zcarstvnz (link to license)
- New Hampshire: Wikipedia user 88x (link to license)
- Maine: Wikipedia user Zcarstvnz (link to license)
