Do you memorize your car license plate?

[ELB]

6 or 7 digits or letters, what's hard to memorize? I routinely memorize number sequences of 16 or more digits and often remember people's telephone numbers for a short while after only one pass and for months to years after only a couple of repetitions. ..."

Wait, you were in a movie with Tom Cruise about 20 years ago, weren't you? Brothers on some kind of cross-country trip, can't remember exactly...

I've only had a few occasions to need to know my plate numbers, so I haven't memorized them, even tho they don't change from year to year very often. I always recognize my truck in the parking lot by the stuff riding around in the bed and the fire radio antenna on the top. And the dent in the tail gate.

[surprise_i'm_armed]

Yes, I have memorized my original "general issue" license plates over the years, my "reserved" (short, non-standard)
license plates, and I have had the same 6 character patriotic license plates since 1989. I had it in Georgia from 1989-1995,
and as soon as I got to Texas in 1995, I got the same vanity plate here.

As an inveterate number plate watcher, I am aware of the various numbering schemes for various vehicle types from multiple
states. I remember all my friends/relatives number plates, and this helps me to verify for sure that it's them when I see a
vehicle like theirs in traffic.

I must say, though, that I have never been a fan of the Texas alphanumeric number plate schemes. It's much harder to remember,
when dealing with large numbers of people for whom I wish to remember their plates.

For a while Texas ran through AAA-123 and 123-AAA series, but many of the old 6 character series are alphanumeric, as is the current 7 character series.

Other states that have had to go to 7 characters have done so with easier systems: ABC-1234 (NY / GA / NC) or California's,
which used up all the 6 characters and went with 1ABC123, then 2ABC123, 3ABC123. Cali's system is similar to the 3/3 system,
and they just change up the 1st number when they run out of the previous series.

Since I got my original Texas vanity plates in 1995, I have kept with the plain white plate with dark numbers. I must agree with a
poster above that vanity plates have gotten very expensive. That's thanks to Austin giving the vanity plate biz to a profit-making
company. I am just going to keep the white ones in order to keep my vanity plate $ at a reasonable level. If I went to some new
series with a graphic and a different color, I'd have to pay the new bigger money. As Bush, Sr. used to say on SNL "Na ga do".

I have always liked the states that either print the county name on the plate, or have a "county prefix" before the unique vehicle number
or 2 letters for their county (Kansas). That way you have an idea where they are from. Most of the Kansans I see in North Texas have
county prefixes of SG (Sedgwick/Wichita, KS) or JOhnson (KC, Kansas).

If you notice Mississippi license plates, the first letter of the license plate is always the first letter of the county in which the vehicle
is registered.

SIA

[mamabearCali]

Virginia vanity plates are cheap so we have vanity plates in all our vehicles. Makes it easy to remember the plates.

[smoothoperator]

. . . it is not written on DL nor on your Insurance papers.

It is on my registration receipt that is kept with other records at home.

If I cared, I would write the license plate number on my insurance card.




But I don't.

[n5wd]

Hard not to remember my plate: it's my ham radio callsign. Now, photographing the VIN and keeping a pix in my cellphone sounds like a good idea.

[Beiruty]

6 or 7 digits or letters, what's hard to memorize? I routinely memorize number sequences of 16 or more digits and often remember people's telephone numbers for a short while after only one pass and for months to years after only a couple of repetitions. I remember the serial number of my Enfield from boot camp in the Navy, the serial numbers of several firearms that I own, and not only the license plate of my first car, 631-ABD from 1966, but my NY driver's license number L15518-485628-983861-46, first issued in 1964, but surrendered in 1993 when I got my IL license.

When I was in grade school and high school I often got points taken off of tests because I didn't show my work in obtaining answers to math tests. I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, partly because the answers just seemed to come to me, therefore no work to show, and partly because the dogmatic teaching of the 50s and 60s was not good at explaining the whys and wherefores. One of my high school math teachers recognized what was happening, because she had a similar problem, and when she finally got it across to me, a whole new world opened, far too late to become some sort of predecessor to Sheldon Cooper.

I frequently "got" the answer because the same question was used in study at some point, so I just "knew" what the answer was. I really didn't know that others did not memorize as easily as I did and didn't find that out for a long time. These days, and for a long time past, I make a conscious effort to avoid recalling numbers, but it ain't easy.

It has come in handy for parlor tricks and bar bets, but not much else in my career as a telephone man, except for remembering people's telephone numbers for years after I worked on their phones, rather then their names. "Hi, Mrs. 861-5564, how are you today?"

You are gifted, that is for sure ;)

[smoothoperator]

And an excellent driver!

[sugar land dave]

I got black and white vanity plates before prices went up. I'll keep mine as is since l don't want to pay the new prices for the "fancier" ones! My wife has standard plates and I know her number. Do I get extra points?

[papajohn1964]

I have mine and the wife's memorized but they are also in both of our phones. I love the "broom" idea, that would have fit nicely on my ex mil's car!!!

[LikesShinyThings]

Yup. Know my current car's plate, last car's, kinda forgetting the two plates preceding that, but still remember my first car's plate, too.
You never forget your first.

A little rusty on hubby's plate, but then again that is his baby, not mine.

[troglodyte]

Hard not to remember my plate: it's my ham radio callsign.

Ditto. Drives the guys at the oil change place bonkers though since radio operators can have the same plate on multiple vehicles. One month I drive in with my big F-250 4x4 Crew Cab then next month with my little Ford Ranger. They can't quite figure it out. I just tell them I washed the truck in hot water and it shrank.