There’s a strange, liminal space that exists in the vast realm of human endeavor, a space where intent is strong, at least initially, but effort and skill are limited, and the resulting execution, while not successful, nevertheless represents a fascinating balance of forces, combining necessity, inspiration, effort, and apathy, all in a sort of delicate balance. These objects don’t necessarily appear all that often, but when they do, they’re worth scrutinizing, which is precisely what we’re going to do now with this delightfully half-assed hand-made illegal California license plate, as seen by the California Highway Patrol.
The ersatz license plate is bolted to a Nissan Sentra, and I suspect it was born out of a very specific need and a lack of resources, either money or time or both. This is the crucible in which so many ideas are brought into the world, really. We’ve seen hand-made license plates and other official automotive documentation before, but something about this one is really sticking with me.
Here, let’s take a look at it, thanks to this image provided by the CHP:
Also, we should probably just come out and acknowledge that bonkers spare tire setup on the Sentra there. Is that tire just strapped to the trunk lid? With…a seatbelt? Ratchet straps? Is the other end of the strap inside the trunk? I think it’s going through the upper lip of the trunk, around the underside of the trunk lid, and then back through the tire? Why?
I’m getting distracted. We’re here to ponder this license plate, which I’m going to show here compared with a mockup of what an official California license plate of the same registration would look like:
Okay, here’s why I find this DIY plate so fascinating: the maker really had two options available to them. The first option is to make something that is clearly not official, but had the relevant information, and maybe a note like LOST PLATE or something like that. Something that is clearly not trying to deceive, and portrays itself as a temporary placeholder, while giving the relevant registration number. Such a plate may not be strictly legal, but it would likely be more defensible should a cop pull you over.
The other option is to actually attempt to forge the license plate, and to make something that is as indistinguishable as possible from the real thing. A genuine forgery, something that, should it be discovered, would place the owner in some legal trouble, but would very likely not even be discovered at all.
Incredibly, this Sentra owner managed to make something that falls in pretty much the exact middle.
It’s both obviously hand-made, and yet at the same time, it’s clear that some effort was made to make it look like the real thing. The “California” script at the top is actually quite well-rendered, despite the erroneous underline, though even that has a nice break to allow for the descender of the “f” be unimpeded. That part looks great!
The actual registration number looks to be an attempt to emulate the particular typography of a license plate, but from flawed memory, and with no actual sources consulted. Still, something of the “feel” of those glyphs was captured, and the color is fairly accurate.
Then we have the URL on the bottom, again seemingly drawn from a false memory, as the actual one uses only lowercase characters, like how many people think of e.e. cummings.
What was the goal of this DIY license plate maker? To deceive? To just get their registration legible? Again, they’re somehow trying to do both at once, halfway for each, and the result is this strange artifact that exists in this uneasy limbo.
Personally, I would have just given this person a fix-it-ticket and let them go, because I don’t see malice here, just someone trying to make the best of something. Maybe I’d just encourage them to pick a direction and really see it through: recreation or just do their own thing?
Really, I think as long as certain criteria are met, I don’t see a problem with DIY license plates. In India, for example, all the license plates are the responsibility of the car owner to make, however they can, and as a result, when I was there I saw a lot of really quietly lovely hand-painted license plates:
What’s the matter with that? If it’s legible, it’s legible, right? I guess we’d need standards of legibility and reflectivity and all that, but if you can meet the requirements, who cares how you get there.
This is a lot of thinking about something that’s really sort of absurd, but I can’t help it. The uncertain timorousness of this license plate, the resourcefulness and clumsiness, the defiance and capitulation, the whole blurry space it exists in, it haunts me.
I don’t know what to do with this feeling, this combination of respect and disdain, but I’ve sort of enjoyed feeling it. So, DIY-license-plate-making Sentra driver, thank you for that.
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