To ask people with personalised number plates.......why?

[itsgoodtobehome]

Genuinely interested. I see more and more personalised number plates (Sha70n) on my way home which inspired this thread. Why do you do it? Do you want people to know your name? Do you wear your name on the back of your jacket or on the front of your t-shirt?

I am really intrigued as to why people would flaunt their name, initials, nickname, whatever.....on their car.

MN enlighten me please!!

I had them in the US because they are not expensive. I wouldn’t bother again though. I don’t hate them, just don’t really see the appeal.

Plate spelling my name is for sale although 0 instead of O it's only 95000 if any one wants to set up a just giving appeal for me.

I did it once. It was the novelty I think. I got bored after two years and got rid. But it was £350 so I thought why not.

Someone I know paid £200k for their private plate. Now THAT is madness.

Most of the people are cockends

I had a FUD!

I enjoy the Chanel ones & funny ones, know of a dentist who had teeth, tooth or similar. Bit naff in general though, particularly when it’s a shit font!!!

Good investment? Mine was £400, market value is now £4000.

I suppose I think of private numbers as a bit like getting a tat for your car. I know I’m judgy, but that’s AIBU(!)

You may well get them for a very good personal reason, but that won’t necessarily stop people thinking (rightly or wrongly) that it shouts look at me.

The analogy (private reg to tat) isn’t perfect I know. But if I could draw you a Venn diagram, there’d be a fair crossover of people I know who have both.

Just as not all private regs are look at me (e.g a bus or taxi firm called ABC that stick 123ABC or 555ABC on their fleet for marketing, or the plumber’s van with FIX1T), I do want to stress that so not all tats are - I know of one person who got a tat to obscure scars from surgery (not that I’ve seen the result)

I get that private numbers might appreciate (unlike tats), and might obscure age (again unlike tats).

Though the latter point (getting a private reg to obscure age) really is
cringe... and don’t people realise that the neighbour they’re trying to impress is only a click away from revealing the car’s age anyway?

We go to cat shows regularly and play "spot the cat-themed number plate" in the car parks during the judging! Like M1 AOW.

I have one that spells "our" breed now.

My second hand car has one, came with the car 'JSA' job seekers allowance. So I've affectionally named her 'Pauline' for any League of Gentlemen fans out there. I'd never get one myself mind

Mine was bought for me, however I've only ever had to remember one numberplate which makes life much easier!

I bought one as an impulse purchase the day they were issued by DVLA about 30 years ago (an A1 plate just with my initials). I put it on a knackered Lada and used to park it next to expensive cars with A2 plates just to piss them off. Number is currently on a retention certificate.

I've always thought they were pretty cheesy but I recently moved to Canada and vanity plates are extremely popular here. The plate belongs to the person rather than the car so I guess people think that they may as well get one that means something given that you keep it forever. A personalised plate costs more than a standard-issue one from the registry but you can order it (cars only need one plate here, on the back) to say whatever you want as long as it's 7 characters or less and not rude or offensive. I find it strange not to be able to tell the age of cars here from their numberplate as I'm so used to that from the UK.

DP just has a standard issue plate and got another standard one to put on the car he bought for me a couple of weeks ago. We briefly contemplated ordering vanity plates for them if we could think of an amusing enough matched pair but despite their ubiquity I still think they're cheesy so we're going to stick with the 3 letter-3 number ones we've got.

Classy.

IMHO we should do what they do in the US - you can have your name etc but it costs extra, and the Americans call them what they are "vanity plates"

Given how puritanical the DVLA is for censoring new release number plates for the most dubious of reasons, I doubt we'd ever see a system like that in place.

I think we should just do what they do in some other countries and assign everyone a plate you take with you and put on whatever car you buy. They're usually not very glamorous configurations either, so you'll have less of the "B16 KEV" shite that you see stuck to a 18 year old clapped out Mercedes S class.

I'd laugh if one day the government actually did something like that, instantly rendering all these expensive plates worthless overnight.

I wouldn't get one as I don't have a middle name and an abbreviation of my first name wouldn't be accepted.

Dream car, normal number plate for same year of car looks like name, why not?

There’s a trend round here to have the name it’s supposed to represent in small writing under the registration number, where a dealership would usually go.

I think that is a stupid idea! Don’t advertise your name so someone could shout it to distract you to rob/rape/abduct you. I know at some point it’s tipping into victim blaming, but don’t help them out.

I feel the same about named items for kids, football shirts, bags, headbands etc.

I used to have a neighbor who was a magician with MA 61C or some other legal combination of letters and numbers that I always found amusing.
I have one that I got for my 21st (apparently a popular birthday for one) its the normal AA11 AAA format with my initials and an abbreviation of my name. Its just for fun and something I can keep forever with minimal effort from a significant birthday and all my family have them now.
DP says it's an Essex thing!

Harmless, cheap personalisation on something that doesn't matter? Like having VB on your phone? Cars are easily ageable by their model now. Most cars are lease so not a money thing. Just another thing to spend money on. I've taken mine off as I wasn't really bothered and felt too visible. I like to be more incognito these days

My toothless neighbours have a UFC one. It makes me laugh every day. Every time I see the bloke I think 'Ultimate Fighting Champion'

My main association with them is from my first job - I remember lots of (unpopular) managers complaining because their cars were being vandalised in the massive work car park. Mainly because they had blindingly obvious personalised regs and so people could easily pick them out to target. Totally unreasonable of course but I do remember thinking ‘serves you right’. That’s probably more of a reflection on my feelings towards those managers than personalised reg owners though, I am fairly indifferent about personalised plates now!

Because some appreciate in value? I have one-my husband bought it me. I’ve never used it because I’ve never had a car new enough for it. Mine won’t appreciate-it very much spells my surname and my surname is so unusual DH’s family would be the only others who would want it

My MN username comes from a joke my dad made when he bought a car with a personalised reg plate with the initials of the previous owner. 😄

Mine spells out Maxine (in a fashion)
I've been called Maxine twice when being breathalised by police.

The cars name is Maxine (the 6th) now. My names nowhere near it.