You could soon personalize your car’s license plate with custom emoji
Give your 🚗 some 💕
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Fancy livening up your license plate? Drivers in the US may soon be able to add some personality to their cars by adding an emoji to a vanity plate alongside a combination of letters and numbers.
AsCNETexplains, motorists with some spare cash will be able to take their pick from a set of six emoji (which will presumably be carefully curated to eliminate the possibility of dirty-minded drivers creating anything rude).
A draft billbefore the Virginia House of Delegates would make Vermont the first US state to introduce smileys to its plates.
Some other US states alreadyallow some punctuationon license plates, so emoji would be a natural move. There’s no way of knowing which ones Vermont’s drivers would be able to choose from, butthe state flagwould seem like an obvious starting point.
Face value
It might sound like an early April Fool’s prank, but there is already a precedent for personalizing plates with smiley faces. In Queensland, Australia,emoji number plateswere introduced in February 2019, to a combination of delight, confusion and disdain.
Australian drivers can only pick from a limited pool of icons, all of which are ‘positive’ (think smiles, sunglasses, and hearts for eyes), and adding one costs a hefty AU$475 (about $320, £250).
“For quite some time we’ve seen that you can support your favourite team or your favourite town with a symbol on your number plate. And using an emoji is no different,” said Rebecca Michael, a spokesperson for the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland.
Get the best Black Friday deals direct to your inbox, plus news, reviews, and more.
Sign up to be the first to know about unmissable Black Friday deals on top tech, plus get all your favorite TechRadar content.
Unfortunately for drivers in the UK,rules on license plate typographyin England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are particularly strict, so we doubt you’ll be able to liven up your plate with a 💂 or a ☕ any time soon.
Cat is TechRadar’s Homes Editor specializing in kitchen appliances and smart home technology. She’s been a tech journalist for 15 years, and is here to help you choose the right devices for your home and do more with them. When not working she’s a keen home baker, and makes a pretty mean macaron.
I fell in love with the cute and compact Hyundai Inster, but it has one major drawback
The 6 best electric motorcycle concepts and launches from EICMA 2024
NYT Strands today — hints, answers and spangram for Sunday, November 10 (game #252)
