Vanity is the name of the game in license plates

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Vanity is the name of the game in license plates

Sunday, August 29, 1999

By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Vanity is the name of the game in license plates

Detours, traffic tie-ups, potholes, PennDOT snafus, high air fares, light-snail transit service, speed traps, slow roads to nowhere.

"Lighten up," people tell me. I try. That's why you'll see an item called "plate du jour" at the end of some "Getting Around" columns. The idea is to report unusual personalized license plates, such as this one I spotted several weeks ago around town: IGOT2GO.

When? Where?

Anyhow, Tim McDonough, a local news editor and my immediate boss, thinks Virginia is the capital of vanity license plates. So, before Tim, the missus and kids left on a recent trip to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, I challenged them to play my license plate-spotting game -- something you might try to break the interstate monotony if you're hitting the road for the Labor Day holiday.

The sharp-eyed McDonoughs, and Mt. Lebanon native Mickey Wagner, a friend accompanying them, scored an impressive list of license plates expressing the occupations, interests, attitudes and other vagaries of motor vehicle owners.

Some plates were self-explanatory: VA GNTLMN, LOV MUFN, SEW FORU, OUI FIVE. Some were intriguing: Was SMYL MAKER an orthodontist, a photographer or a comedian? Did NT CHEAP on a Dodge Avenger refer to the car or the driver?

The McDonoughs wondered how a Dan Marino admirer tooling around with the license plate DLFNS 13 survives the Redskins fanatics in the Washington, D.C., area. And where's EVIL 2, and is it a pickup truck? (They had spotted a pickup with EVIL 3 a few hours before running across another sporting EVIL ONE.)

Other states have their vanities. A suspected computer geek, or perhaps just an eccentric, from Michigan is PIXL8ED. A Pennsylvania car proclaiming GOP VOTE was not carrying Gov. Ridge or Elsie Hillman.

On the trip back from the beach, McDonough spotted a plate that summed up the trip: IB SAN-D. So was his family.

I had an experience with a personalized license plate a decade ago, and it wasn't good. You'll see the plate -- GRATA 1 -- instead of my fat head at the top of today's column.

After I had tires slashed or relieved of air pressure three times, and after somebody "keyed" my left door, leaving a 2-foot scratch, I realized the price of my vanity. The GRATA 1 plate became history, and PennDOT got an extra $24, the price at the time for a new license plate that doesn't stand out in the crowd.

"Top Things Not To Say to a Cop When He Pulls You Over" is the title of an e-mail forwarded to Grata's Guide June 1. I don't know the source -- I'm not sure I want to know.

But because the summer travel season is coming to an end, and because I know our local police and state police have a such a great sense of humor, here's the list of things -- the printable ones -- not to say.

?I can't reach my license unless you hold my beer.

Sorry, officer. I didn't realize my radar detector wasn't plugged in.

I was trying to keep up with traffic. Yes, I know there are no other cars around. That's how far ahead of me they are.

?Hey! Aren't you the guy from the Village People?

You must have been doing 110 to keep up with me. Go-o-o-d job.

I thought you had to be in relatively good physical shape to be a police officer.

I was going to be a cop myself, but then I decided to finish high school instead.

You're not going to check the trunk, are you?

Gee, that gut sure doesn't inspire confidence.

Didn't I see you get your butt kicked on "Cops"?

I pay your salary.

Uh ... You on the take, or what?

Gee, officer, that's terrific. The last officer gave me only a warning.

Do you know why you pulled me over? OK. Just so one of us does.

What do you mean, have I been drinking? You're the trained specialist.

When I reached down to pick up my bag of grass, my gun fell and got lodged between the brake and gas pedal. That caused me to speed out of control.

Factoid: State and local police conducted 529 sobriety checkpoints and DUI roving patrols last year. Of nearly 150,000 who passed through the checkpoints and patrol stops, 3,883 were tested for DUI violations. -- Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

Send your transportation questions, suggestions and complaints to Joe Grata at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, or e-mail him at jgrata@post-gazette.com. Include address and phone number, please. Joe Grata is a Post-Gazette staff writer.