Now they're putting URLs on our license plates.

April 3, 2001 11:46 AM

Now they're putting URLs on our license plates. This Internet thing has finally gone too far. (Though the thought of Dale Earnhardt license plates is itself disturbing.)
posted by aaron (42 comments total)

Maybe they should work on their site first.

Purple, green, blue, and teal? I admit I'm usually a bit colorblind, but, euh??
posted by pnevares at 11:50 AM on April 3, 2001

The Pennsylvania license plate has had the state site URL (www.state.pa.us) on it for the last 18 months or so.

I don't need to advertise the state's crap site on my car, but I'd have no qualms whatsoever if mine said www.bluesilver.org. I already have a personalised plate, why not a personalised URL. I'd even be willing to trade for a regular plate number if I had my choice of what site I wanted to promote along the bottom.

As to those Nascar plates - do the people of WV really want to give their neighbours to the northeast another reason to point and laugh when we see WVians on our roads? I think not.
posted by Dreama at 11:57 AM on April 3, 2001

Um, Dreama, your bigotry is showing. And it's deeply amusing to your neighbours to the northeast.
posted by aaron at 12:05 PM on April 3, 2001

Domain names are so passe.
posted by sonofsamiam at 12:08 PM on April 3, 2001

I would start the W. Va. jokes at this point, but here in Virginia...

I was shocked not to find the Stars & Bars, and no NASCAR as of yet. This one's a hoot, since Va. is a "right to work" state.
posted by gimli at 12:09 PM on April 3, 2001

Well, in Texas, we have this one. Don't ask me, I just live here.
posted by bradth27 at 12:15 PM on April 3, 2001

I can just see it: soon we will able to put Flash movies on our license plates. You know, to keep us amused and wanting to buy stuff with ads playing on license plates while we wait in traffic....
posted by poorhouse at 12:21 PM on April 3, 2001

Brad, the Texas-shaped pith really makes the plate, unless that's Monsanto's doing.
posted by gimli at 12:26 PM on April 3, 2001

Um, Dreama, your bigotry is showing. And it's deeply amusing to your neighbours to the northeast.

What bigotry? Pennsylvanians (particularly in the SW) tend to snicker at WVians already, and would likely do so even more readily at WVians w/Nascar plates. It's just the way things go. We tend to dislike WVians on our roads, and as far as the Nascar thing, Pittsburgh and environs are not hot fan bases. It's not a personal thing at all. I save my on-the-road rancor for folks who drive like schmucks, regardless of where they come from or what kind of silly looking license plate they sport.
posted by Dreama at 12:33 PM on April 3, 2001

Yep, that is one hell of a pit.
posted by bradth27 at 12:35 PM on April 3, 2001

But you have to admire the opt-in marketing statement on their application:

I authorize the Division of Motor Vehicles to sell my personal information for use in surveys, marketing and solicitation.

It's optional, as they note, but it's also the biggest signature line on the page.
posted by idiolect at 12:45 PM on April 3, 2001

I can just see it: soon we will able to put Flash movies on our license plates.

Hm, taking that a step further, how about plates with ads on them? Who wouldn't want a Coke Georgia plate? "enjoy! traffic!" Or a CBS New York plate?

I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet....
posted by hijinx at 12:51 PM on April 3, 2001

C'mon guys, putting URLs on licence plates is just another sign that the web is ubiquitous. That's a good sign, unless you like being exclusionary, which of course no one here does...
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 1:01 PM on April 3, 2001

A plate for square dancers? Only in Washington, I guess...
posted by shinybeast at 1:01 PM on April 3, 2001

Are we on Subsidized Time yet? Is it the Year of the Purdue Wonderchicken?
posted by Skot at 1:07 PM on April 3, 2001

you got to admit, that square dancing plate looks great. "Bob and Marietta Jones are here to show the state of Washington how white people get down!."
posted by bradth27 at 1:17 PM on April 3, 2001

It's truly breathtaking how much cultural distance separates New York from West of the Delaware. Staggering.
posted by ParisParamus at 1:27 PM on April 3, 2001

Depends upon the culture you are talking about. Down in Texas, we consider someone who can skin a water moccasin properly, make Wine from Welch's Frozen concentrate, and can recall every song Hank Williams ever sang to be highly cultured.....And if you are female, if you can't learn to get your hair to stick up atleast 6 inches off your head, you just might be retarded. Culture? We got lots of it.
posted by bradth27 at 1:47 PM on April 3, 2001

I like this one from Texas.
posted by bjgeiger at 1:48 PM on April 3, 2001

that's the zoophilia awareness plate, isn't it?
posted by bradth27 at 1:52 PM on April 3, 2001

bjgeiger, you rock. I just visited your site, and you have a whole page on your site devoted to Godzilla thumbnails. I am humbled.
posted by bradth27 at 1:57 PM on April 3, 2001

In Texas, don't they have capital punishment for animals too?
posted by ParisParamus at 2:00 PM on April 3, 2001

In Texas, don't they have capital punishment for animals too?

depends upon where the animal bites me, and how hard. Sometimes I let em go with a warning.
posted by bradth27 at 2:06 PM on April 3, 2001

This plate thing, made by those in prisons, is why I do not renew my license but continue to drive with a cardboard stuck in rear window and a made up plate.
posted by Postroad at 2:08 PM on April 3, 2001

There's an industry for you to get rich on: humane license plates; like Equal Exchange coffee...
posted by ParisParamus at 2:12 PM on April 3, 2001

Down in Florida, we have the first speciality license plate (1987.) There was quite the row recently over this Pro Life/Anti-Abortion plate.
posted by ahughey at 2:18 PM on April 3, 2001

Call me when they come out with a Florida license plate with a broken voting machine on it.
posted by ParisParamus at 2:22 PM on April 3, 2001

bjgeiger, you rock.

Thank you, Brad. I love old sci-fi.
posted by bjgeiger at 2:33 PM on April 3, 2001

Geez, I feel so inadequate. All we have here in Massachusetts are right whales and lighthouses and boring stuff like that.
posted by agaffin at 2:46 PM on April 3, 2001

I just checked out the Alaska DMV site and was dismayed to see that they have no plate commemorating their most precious commodity.
posted by gimli at 3:08 PM on April 3, 2001

Damn. I love West Virginia, but If they are gonna make a Nascar Lisence plates, at least have the courtesy to commemorate the truly great West Virginians that made the state great. Like Hasil Adkins, and Jesco, The Dancing Outlaw!
posted by punkrockrat at 3:15 PM on April 3, 2001

Read all about it! Pennsylvania's license plates are "out of control!"
posted by shinybeast at 4:53 PM on April 3, 2001

We need "MeFi Veterans of the 123CheapHosting Campaign" plates. How many signatures does it take?
posted by gimli at 5:23 PM on April 3, 2001

The only logical endpoint is a CafePress-style "design your own license plate!" capability. I can't wait!
posted by youhas at 6:22 PM on April 3, 2001

wow. they know what numbers are in floriday in order to put them on a license plate? i thought numbers were just for them slick democrats. (Sorry, please forgive me. I tried to stop myself, but I couldn't.)
posted by benjh at 7:52 PM on April 3, 2001

Ok, for all you MeFi licence plate enthusiasts: The Internet Licence Plate Gallery!
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 6:29 AM on April 4, 2001

aaron, you're in West Virginny? I had no idea. You're so. . . eloquent!

And yes, PA plates are out of control, and we've got the Square Dancing, Chiropractor and so forth plates too. I don't know about bowling, though. There are even Knights of Columbus plates, which prompted my husband to suggest that the state issue "Hey, We're Jews!" plates, but no one seemed to think that was funny.
posted by Dreama at 8:18 AM on April 4, 2001

West Virginia's fastest growing industry is technology support (read: server farms and help desks).
posted by dhartung at 9:12 AM on April 4, 2001

With the energy crunch in CA, I imagine we'll see lots of server farms and high-tech industry in general moving to places with more power.

I'd also like to see servers moving to a more efficient processor architecture. You could run four PowerPC chips in a server box and still generate less heat and use less power than a single Pentium IV. IBM should start selling multi-proc G4 Linux rackmount boxes as "green" server platforms. (IBM's G4 doesn't have AltiVec, but for most server tasks you won't need it anyway.)
posted by kindall at 1:56 AM on April 6, 2001

With the energy crunch in CA, I imagine we'll see lots of server farms and high-tech industry in general moving to places with more power.

Is this somebody from the Onion posting here? Ask a Spawning Salmon or some such?
posted by crasspastor at 2:37 AM on April 6, 2001