Saturday, August 13, 2011

Virginia is for: Vanity Plates

Last month Deirdre and I went to Norfolk, Virginia, to attend the retirement ceremony for Roy Kiddy, a dear friend and former shipmate. It was great to see Roy and his wife Mary and their kids, and to live a little Navy life again. I was stationed in Norfolk from 1995-1996, and much has changed since I lived there. It is still a quintessential Navy town, with Naval Station Norfolk, Naval Air Station Norfolk and Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek located there. I had forgotten about another element of living in Virginia... vanity license plates.

It seemed like every fourth or fifth car had something to tell me about the owner. It also seemed that that most of the people who drive in Norfolk disregard even the commonest courtesies on the road, cutting me off, driving 55 MPH in the left lane of the freeway, etc. Here are a few examples of the vanity plates we saw during our sojourn to Virginia:

The image above was taken at the Navy Exchange in Norfolk. Perhaps the driver is sanctified?

I have no idea what this person is trying to say about themselves or their car:

I am not quite certain who TJ is... but clearly this car is TS's "babe:"

I will let the reader guess what kind of car this license plate was affixed to when I took this image:

I took this image aboard Naval Station Norfolk. Clearly, this person is involved in some sort of radio communications... or he/she is a freak:
These images are a very small sample of what the vanity plates we saw during our 48 hours in Norfolk. Clearly, many of the drivers there have something to say about themselves and do it via their automobiles.

5 comments:

BigFred said...

I want to say that I read somewhere that VA has the highest percentage of vanity plates in the US, but I may just be making that up.

Paul's Blog said...

Fred, I have lived in the following states:

Michigan
Georgia
Rhode Island
California
South Carolina
Virginia
Alabama
Louisiana
Illinois

There were clearly more vanity plates in Virginia than in any of the other states where I have lived. Perhaps it is something in the water there...

Lisa said...

Clearly a lot of folks in Norfolk, VA, used to live in Scottsdale, AZ.

I did see one I liked the other day, though, on a vintage Porsche:

U4Eahh

At least it was creative.

Lisa said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Gary said...

I saw one that said "4X4X8". It was on a Honda. I'll let you guess which model.