Nevadans wear their egos on their car bumpers

By Marshall Allen (contact)

Friday, July 7, 2006 | 7:21 a.m.

Forget the self-obsession in Los Angeles, Nevada now has a higher percentage of vanity license plates than California.

HLYCOW

And the number is growing at a rate faster than Nevada's meteoric growth.

Since 2002, the percentage of personalized license plates has doubled, to 4 percent of Nevada's total registrations.

Only 2.3 percent of California vehicles have personalized plates.

Many plates are self-explanatory, such as the Ford Focus that identifies LYNDA F, and the SUV that boasts TRFYWIF. But others, such as the Corvette that announces N2TIGRZ, raise questions - Siegfried and Roy? A Detroit baseball fan?

UNLV sociologist Simon Gottschalk says vanity plates are a strategy by otherwise anonymous drivers to distinguish themselves from the masses.

American culture already promotes individualism and the glorifying of one's self, Gottschalk said, but it is even more evident in Las Vegas because of the sense that anything goes here.

"Vegas is so much about self-promotion, needing to believe that one can be the next winner, the star of the moment - that one can win the jackpot," Gottschalk said.

Such ego costs $36 per year, which has not dissuaded Nevadans from buying nearly 90,000 of them. Drivers can check on the plate's availability online at www.dmvnv.com/platespersonalized.htm.

Some plates reflect the owner's cultural roots. Jorge Garcia, for instance, chose "Q VOWAY," which he said is Spanish slang in his hometown of El Paso, Texas, for "What's up, buddy?"

"That's the way I say 'Hi' to my friends," said the 41-year-old plumber, who put the plates on his 1950 Chevy truck. "They know me by that."

Most plates are cute, clever and innocent, but that's only because the Department of Motor Vehicles vigilantly censors potentially offensive messages. Its database of banned vanity plates reads like a frat boy's scrawl on a restroom wall.

The list of offensive messages includes creative arrangements of letters and numbers that Nevada's naughty drivers have combined to promote gangs, sex and profanity.

About 3,600 combinations have been banned - don't bother trying ALIENSX or ASHKIKR - and the list is growing as people keep trying to coyly sneak past the arbiters of good taste.

The DMV's first line of defense against people taking too much license is in the local offices, where any application that's obviously profane is disallowed. DMV technicians can also enter the plate into the database of banned messages - which includes 39 variations on the term "bad ass." If it isn't flagged, but the technician is still suspicious, the application is sent to the DMV's five-person Personalized Plate Committee.

It receives about 10 questionable applications a day, committee member Tomi Blevins said. All denials, based on the committee's majority vote, are added to the database of unsuitable vanity plates.

Accurate judgments depend on experience and research, Blevins said. Committee members have queried their children about the latest slang terms, searched the Internet or called cops to inquire about possible gang terminology. Most of the rejected plates are "pretty blatant," Blevins said.

Each application includes a written appeal by the customer, who argues for the plate's validity. Blevins said one application in question was for the plate 69HO.

"The customer says it's on a 1969 Hurst Oldsmobile," she said.

The plate was denied because of its sexual innuendo.

Customers can appeal rejected applications to an administrative judge. Seven appeals are now pending in Las Vegas.

Blevins said she loves her job, but she won't comment on the view it gives her of humanity.

"Most of the time I'm just amazed that they actually think they're going to get the plate," she said. "Some of them are funny - they really are - but they're still not getting the plate."