By Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 9, 2006; A01
The silence in the parking lot is broken only by the sounds of newly sprouted leaves doing a little dance in the spring breeze. There are no people to be found, and yet in this commuter lot at Potomac Mills mall, Virginians are telling stories and showing off.
Their tales are cryptic and short -- a combination of seven letters and numbers or fewer -- and are told on thin, 6-by-12-inch pieces of metal. Within those confines they manage to share their beliefs -- 2HIZWRD; their sorrows -- RIP DAVE; their daydreams -- FLEE2NC; and everything else, including their favorite song and football team as well as combinations that make sense to no one but them.
It is the language of the license plate, and no people in America speak it more fervently than those in Virginia, where 1.4 million cars -- nearly one in five -- sport a personalized plate. In almost every other state, vanity license plates are a diversion for a relative few. But in the Old Dominion, the practice has crossed from a fad to a way of life, a quirky part of what it means to be a Virginian.
"It's a part of Virginia culture, to show your colors of whatever stripe they happen to be," said Charlie Franz, a Woodbridge resident who sports a TWEEEZR plate, in honor of the band Phish and his favorite song, "Tweezer."
Yes, but why? What does it say about Virginians that they're so crazy for personalized plates?
Maybe they just know a good deal when they see one. It costs an extra $10 a year to get a vanity plate in Virginia, compared with the charges in some states, which can reach hundreds of dollars. Virginia also makes it easy to do online, where drivers can test combinations to see whether their favorite is available.
Those are reasons that make sense to Pam Goheen, spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. "At $10 per year, personalized plates are really a bargain in Virginia," she said, noting the state made $9.2 million from vanity plate sales last year. "And customers can spend all the time they want at home, plugging different messages in different special plates."
But cheap and easy can be only part of the explanation, because it's cheap and easy to get a vanity plate in a lot of other states, too. They cost $12 a year extra in Florida, for instance, but only 1.1 percent of registered vehicles have one. The plates run $25 a year extra in Maryland and $75 a year extra in the District.
Some see their neighbors doing it so they figure they may as well, too. "It's a self-perpetuating thing," Franz said. "You see so many other people with it, you do the stuff that's important to you, too."
But many who have the plates, including Franz, also say there's something a little deeper about their obsession. They say that, in an often anonymous world, a license plate gives them a chance to express an intimate part of themselves. It can be a show of pride, a message for the masses or a way to signal to your peeps that you're one of them.
Franz's plate may seem odd to most who drive by him, but Phish fans get it. He has crossed paths a couple times with the guy who got TWEEZER, and they always honk and wave. It's a handshake and embrace, automobile style.
It's a way to keep the faith, added his wife, Heidi, whose plate -- 4 GUYUTE -- honors her favorite Phish song, "Guyute." "I'm really proud of my license plate," she said. "I like being able to express myself. It's unique and lets other people who are into Phish know that here's a fellow Phish fan."
Others said there are so many messages out there that a vanity plate gives them a forum, albeit limited, to send theirs.
"We all want to be known for something," said René Cardwell of Stafford, who has CAKEL8D on her plate because she has a cake-making business. (Don't get it? It's Cake Lady.) "It gives you a sense of pride, and you get to display it to the world," she said.
Cardwell said she first got a personalized plate when she was trying to lose weight. Her trainer told her that she had to develop mental toughness, so to motivate herself she came up with MN2LE-TF. (Yes, she got lots of questions about what that one meant.) She lost 70 pounds and retired the plate to a wall in her home.
CAKEL8D is what she wants to be known for now, but Cardwell, 44, said it will be something different in a year, something that represents where she is at that point in her life. Cardwell hopes that in her old age, her license plates will tell her story.
"When I'm 90 years old and someone sees my collection, maybe someone will say, 'She was pretty cool,' " Cardwell said. "It's a little piece of a legacy."
With CAKEL8D and the 1.4 million others, Virginia has more vanity plates than any other state. The only other states that come close are Illinois, which has 1.1 million personalized plates, and California, with a little more than 1 million.
But in terms of percentages of drivers, Virginia is by itself. Those 1.1 million plates in Illinois amount to 10.4 percent of registered vehicles, compared with 18.5 percent in Virginia. California's 1 million make up just 3 percent of its fleet.
At the bottom end are states such as Louisiana, Texas and Indiana, where less than 1 percent of cars have personalized plates. A scant 1.7 percent of Maryland vehicles have them. A handful of places, including the District, either do not track the numbers or were unable to provide them.
Personalized plates are the combinations of letters and numbers designed by drivers. They may or may not be on specialized plates, which have backgrounds for such things as military service, colleges and other interests.
There are some patterns to vanity plates. A classic is to use one's initials and a spouse's initials. Dog-themed plates are popular. OBX, for Outer Banks, plus something else seems to be everywhere. And lots of people put their car model on their plate. One of the plates at Potomac Mills, for example, read ALT1MA on, you guessed it, a Nissan Altima.
There also seem to be certain types of messages on certain types of cars. A convertible sports car with plate JELLIS 1 passed through Aldie on a recent day. Not far behind it was another sports car, with LKIKARE.
Others get cute with their messages, such as a pickup with IHOSEU. Seems somehow vulgar, but it's not. The firefighter insignia next to it gives it away.
Some are apropos to the point of being cliche: GR8 SHPR parked at the Leesburg Corner Premium Outlets, for instance.
And some are just impossible to crack unless you know the person. It could be that Middleburg resident Britton Condon has the stumper of all time: FITASC.
Any guesses?
Perhaps there's a French sportsman out there?
Okay, time's up.
FITASC is the abbreviation for the Federation Internationale de Tir Aux Armes Sportives de Chasse, which, as any clay shooter knows, is a federation that runs an obscure and difficult type of shooting discipline.
Why put something on a plate that no one can comprehend?
"I just did it for myself," Condon said. "It just reminds me of it, that's all.
"No one has any idea what it is," he added.
Uh, yeah.
The need to express herself also had a lot to do with Jessica Echevarria's plate -- ECHVRIA -- which is a shortened version of her last name and, to her, a "declaration of pride."
She chose it after her mother divorced a man whose last name was Reyes, and Echevarria dropped Reyes as one of her three names. She wanted to shout out to the world that her last name was Echevarria and only Echevarria.
But only for a little while, she said. Pretty soon, she wants to switch her plate to TRTHHLZ. Too many people say the truth hurts, she said, and it's time to spread the message that the truth heals.
"People are more expressive these days," she said, explaining her desire to speak via license plate. She noted another motivation, too. "A lot of us are attention hogs," she said. "They're not called vanity plates for nothing."