QOTD: What's the Best (or Worst) Looking License Plate?

As I reveal daily in TTAC’s Slack channel, I’m a bit geeky in some ways. One of the ways this manifests is through a fascination with license plates (I am not alone in this — Mr. Guy shares my geekiness on this topic, perhaps going beyond my own level).

I think this comes from living most of my life in the northeast corner of Illinois. It’s a near-daily occurrence to see Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Missouri, and even Ohio plates due to simple geographic proximity. Factor in tourists and people snagging rental cars, many of which carry out-of-state plates, and if you live in or near Chicago (or any big city, really), you see a good cross-section of the nation’s plates.

Not to mention, as eagle-eyed readers might note, press cars often arrive wearing plates from various states. My travels for this job take me to locales near state borders, which means seeing cars from neighboring states passing by. I’ve also spent a fair amount of time in Maryland these past two years. One sees many different plates there, in part because of proximity to DC and the I-95 corridor, and also because of military folks stationed in the area.

Finally, the license plate game was the number one boredom fighter on long road trips when I was a wee lad. Hey, it was the ‘80s – tablets weren’t a thing yet, and Game Boy batteries discharged quickly.

So yeah, I have an eye for license plates. When heading out to O’Hare, sans press car, to drive the Silverado last week, I spotted a random SUV with New York plates from the El (Chicago’s Blue Line rides between the lanes of the Kennedy Expressway). These are my least favorite plates, and I grimaced.

Conversely, I find NJ plates to be the most aesthetically pleasing. I don’t know why – I’ve probably spent less than a full day in that state, in total, over my lifetime. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen every Sopranos episode multiple times?

As for my state, we’re in the process of rolling out new plates, replacing the bland but attractive ones with a design so tacky that for the first time in her life, my mom sprung for a specialty plate when her car needed new tags.

I can’t recall all 50 states’ plates off the top of my head, but of the ones I can, I have a mental index of the ones that look good and the ones that don’t.

So, B and B, I ask you – what state’s plate do you love, or loathe? For simplicity’s sake, let’s keep this to “standard” plates, not specialty plates (like for a sports team) you’d have to pay extra for. Let’s also keep this to aesthetics, and not worry about state slogans and mottos. Let’s also ignore how a plate makes us feel about a state’s drivers.

What plate always catches your eye, good or bad? Sound off below.

[Image: Murilee Martin/TTAC]