Ok. License plates. Let’s get at it.
It’s important that we establish what we’re doing here. The immediate task at hand is to figure out what every state’s current primary standard license plate looks like. If you missed Monday’s moment of accountability, we thought we had all fifty down (plus D.C.’s). We then realized a few updates had snuck past us. So, we’re going back through all fifty states (plus D.C.) and nailing them down.
Once we have all the plates reidentified, we’ll rank them 1-51, since a surprising number of people search “License Plates Ranked” on Google and we used to get a lot of pageviews from that. Once we’ve published the rankings, we’ll start License Plate Bracket III. Current ETA on first round voting is Tuesday morning, June 28th, which I think is the birthday of both a high school friend of mine and an old coworker of mine from the corporate days (as opposed to an old coworker from the public works days, where we did not learn one another’s birthdays). What a birthday that will be for them.
Today, we’re going through the Western plates. All states west of Texas and the Dakotas. Image credits can be found at the bottom.
Alaska
The Alaskan plate, long a favorite of ours, has a little confusion surrounding it, but not a lot. On the website for the Alaska DMV (or its equivalent), it looked like the standard plate was just plain and yellow, but from what we can tell elsewhere, this is actually still the one. If you have other information, please get in touch.
Hawaii
No confusion here. Rainbow and (implied) sunshine.
Washington
Washington’s plate remains its mighty self. See quite a few of these on the streets down here in Austin, believe it or not. Amazon spies, I assume, but then again, this plate feels like a different Washington than the Washington where Amazon’s headquartered. Which is a good idea, by the DMV. No need to disavow, but keeping some distance is a good call.
Oregon
An old standby here as well. The West Coast has remained steadfast in having straightforward, consistent license plates, and I don’t think our conservative instincts give them enough credit for that.
California
Finishing off the Pacific shoreline. Nothing of note here, either.
Arizona
The big finding here is that the UFO-like thing sitting atop the sun in certain images from three years ago, when we first ranked plates, has either been removed or was never really there. Which 100% backs up the UFO theory regarding it, and adds some questions about interuniversal travel. Someone get Douglas Adams on the phone. He’s thought about this.
New Mexico
Ok, our first source of significant confusion.
New Mexico also has a turquoise license plate. It is a standard license plate, but so is this one. You evidently decide which you want when you register your car in that state, and it’s unclear if there’s a default. Since the original design of this one predates the original turquoise design (from the state’s centennial celebration, in 2012), we’re designating this as the primary plate and using it for both our rankings and our bracket. There’s also an Alaska situation going on where the DMV website makes this plate look rather plain, but we haven’t seen any pictures of real plain plates, making us think they just don’t show the plate in all its glory on the site. As with every state, if you have more information, please let us know.
Nevada
Still using this one out there in Nevada.
Utah
We’ve got another situation here. Similarly to New Mexico, Utah has multiple standard plates. The two oldest are this one and the Ski Utah one, but while the Ski Utah concept predates the Delicate Arch concept, at least on license plates (the Delicate Arch predates skiing by at least a few hundred millennia, I assume), the Delicate Arch concept has been around in this form for longer. So, we’re calling it primary.
Colorado
Now’s a good time to mention that we won’t be considering whether or not a plate has security threads in the rankings, because it’s too hard to verify which do and don’t have security threads and they often look different in mockups from how they look on actual plates. (Security threads are those squiggly, intertwined, translucent lines down the middle of plates.)
Idaho
Thank God this one hasn’t changed. This is more than my favorite license plate. This is one of my favorite things in the world. And I don’t have a bad life, guys.
Montana
Society evidently hasn’t advanced far enough for this plate to be physically shaped like the geographic outline of Montana. Of all the ones we were hoping to have missed an update on, this was the one where it was most disappointing to learn we hadn’t.
Wyoming
No changes to the back-to-back defending bracket champ.
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We’re aiming to be back tomorrow with either the Midwestern plates or the South-and-South-Adjacent plates (we have to incorporate Kentucky & West Virginia and Texas & Oklahoma somewhere). See you then.
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Image Credits
- Alaska: Wikipedia user Zcarstvnz (link to license)
- Hawaii: Public domain
- Washington: Wikipedia user Pickn528 (link to license)
- Oregon: Wikipedia user EvanA123 (link to license)
- California: Public domain
- Arizona: Walter Punzman, via Wikipedia (link to license)
- New Mexico: Wikipedia user Moonsdebut (link to license)
- Nevada: Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles
- Utah: Wikipedia user Pickn528 (link to license)
- Colorado: Wikipedia user Rouge Falconer (link to license)
- Idaho: Wikipedia user Pickn528 (link to license)
- Montana: Wikipedia user Broz1014 (link to license)
- Wyoming: Wyoming Department of Transportation
