As requested, a thread on a popular obsession.

In the UK it is very difficult to create personal number plates because of the strange rules. I particularly liked the following:

November 1978, Elmer's End: 5 EXY

Summer 1996, Sussex/Kent border (several sightings): P 155 OFF

Some vanity plates are not going to be accepted by the states, officials have decided.

3M  TA3

not a chance.  In a rear view mirror it looks too much like EAT ME.

My favourite personalised plate:  01NKY

Around Rockhampton about 10/15 years ago, there were an incredible number of numberplates with the combination BTX.  Queensland Transport must have sent a big consignment of consecutive plates, because my family counted about a hundred different ones just in our town out of a possible thousand.  Normally I wouldn't like that combination of letters because it's so spiky and abrupt (I LOVE ordinal linguistic personification... it took me forever to realise everyone doesn't see textures and character traits in numberals and letters) but I've seen it so much it's like an old friend.

Mum's numberplate for a long time was 118OGU.  I have only once in my life seen another OGU plate, and I was so excited I took a photo of it on the car ahead of me at the traffic lights.  Co-indicentally, it was not only about the same age as Mum's car, but the same model!  (Incidentally, not sure I'd want OGU on my car, even though it's nice and round.  It's so sticky and gloopy.)

This one I like!!!!

I used to watch number plates obsessively -- and get a small thrill whenever I saw it go up by one letter in the alphabet (in NZ and Australia, number plates start with letters and end with numbers, for the most part.)

Personalised plates don't interest me much -- although that one is funny!!! But...

In Queenstown there is a company that does tours of LOTR sites, and their vehicles all have names of characters on the number plates. "Urukai", "Pippin", "Eowyns" &c. I'd apply for a job with them but I heard they treat their employees pretty crappily. and I'm kind of sick of tourists.

This is a good one:

http://www.linux.duke.edu/~icon/bizarre/a55-rgy.jpg

Swedish plates have 3 letters + 3 digits. Some letter combos are prohibited such as kuk which is slang for penis (penis is the correct word not only in English but also Swedish).

I've a habit of coming up with words were the letters could fit; such as "cty" = accountability, actually, city...

number plates in a odd way can be quite funny .

WEE (at least was ) is one of the many letter combinations to be found at the end of british number plates ;p

P101 WEE etc

In U´kraine, Number plates had earlier 3 letters at the end, where the first two meant the region where it comes from. Though there is no right to chose number plates, for some reason , i extremely often met number plates reading "Anja" and "Jana" (in Ukrainian, there is a letter for "ja"). Names encoded in those plates were obvious but still, the fact that two names, one reversal of the other, were found on so much cars, amused me...

so many cars*

WEE (at least was ) is one of the many letter combinations to be found at the end of british number plates ;p

P101 WEE etc

Vanity plates are allowed here (for an annual fee, crafty lot)

Last week I saw 'CCCP'

There's a reason for this.   New car dealers get batches of number plates to assign to the vehicles they sell.

Same here. It's also a game my parents taught us. Good to play with bored children on the open road!!

But the letters on each numberplate have to fit in the same order. So PNL cannot make nuptial but it can make panel. &c.

That's an international rule. There's harsh penalties for those that sway from it...

But of course. Hung, drawn and quartered, one would think!

Today I was going for a walk and it started to rain. And when I was almost home and was getting soaked, a car drove past me. The number plate read "DRY154" How ironic, methought!