A few weeks ago, my wife parked the car in our neighborhood. She ended up behind an old, dark SUV with what appeared to be a New York license plate. The plate “number” was the B-word.
Of course, it wasn’t a real license plate, as it lacked some of the accouterments, and the font wasn’t quite right. But it was white with blue lettering, with the word “New York” on the top. At a passing glance, it looked close enough. My wife was offended.
I was curious. What is the message here? Was the driver trying to say New York is a terrible place or that life is a terrible thing? Is it a comment about women, or does somebody think this was women’s empowerment?
Moreover, I’m puzzled why they would replace their license plate with it instead of putting it on a bumper sticker.
We saw it a second time about a week later.
You can’t do that!
A few days after that, I was being dropped off near my house, and the driver noticed this same plate. They said, “You can’t do that!” This wasn’t a question of what the messaging was. It was that, by law, you can’t replace a New York State DMV plate with this phony item. BTW, there was no front plate; NYS has plates on the front and back of the vehicle.
In the city of Albany, code enforcement will not allow a car without proper plates, even in your driveway. If not addressed, the car could be ticketed and eventually towed.
My friend looked at the registration sticker on the windshield with the real license plate number and immediately called the police on their cell phone. As a public service administrator with years of experience, they have a strong sense of what’s right and wrong. (I’m not a car person, so it would not have occurred to me to look at the registration sticker.)
The next morning, the car was gone. I don’t know whether the owner moved the vehicle or it was towed. A week later, the car returned with the faux plate, slightly crooked because it wasn’t screwed in very well. This has now become fascinating to me. I tell my friend that the car is back, they call the cops, and the car disappears. I haven’t seen it even with its correct plates since.