Friday, February 15, 2008

976.4 Speaking of License Plates: More than One Winner!

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDoT) took advantage of the interactive nature of the Web this month when it held an online vote for the next car license plate. Several choices (including the one released in 2000) were available and 1.2 million "voters" cast their choice.
I voted for the winner!! Although the bluebonnet one was pretty, this one got me in the heart. The media describes it as the one with the big white star or Lone Star. I suspect that many, many of the 400,000 + voters that selected this one saw what I saw...the beautiful mountain range and powerful cloud formation...yup, a west Texas scene won!

O, by the way, changing the design was not the only reason for the change. Seems we have used up all the alpha-numeric combinations possible with the 6 character format. Took us 33 years to do so. TxDot needed to add a 7th character so they decided that it was also a good time for a design change as well. Personally, I'm glad...never cared for the tiny hodge-podge symbols on the current one.


As part of the 23 Things program that the SBISD Library Information Services Department is sponsoring, Players get to mess around with lots of image generators. One in particular is Image Chef that has a license plate (and yes, other states ARE available!) on which you can create messages. My "practice" plate for the 23 Things advertises the program.

Then I just played around a bit more to show you some other ideas for this fun Thing! Maybe the other states could be incorporated into the traditional states' reports we all have our kids do at some point?


Go see what kind of fun you can make!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the new one, too! Have you ever noticed that the horse on the current plate has 3 legs? My 5th grader pointed that out to me one day while washing the car. He didn't think that was a very smart rider to get on a three-legged horse.

Terry said...

They wouldn't have needed new numbers if they hadn't made me, and I presume others, change their plates after 10 years. Now I can't ever remember my license plate number!