Photo : Toby Talbot ( AP Images

As if personalized and vanity license plates could not get any worse, folks might soon be able to add emojis to them, if this new Vermont bill passes. And I always thought Vermont was such a nice place.


Drivers will be allowed to add their choice of six emojis to their license plates, proposes a bill introduced in the Vermont House of Representatives, reports Business Insider. It’s unclear which six emojis will be permitted, but as we truly live in hell, I’d like to appropriately volunteer the shit emoji (💩), the barf emoji (🤮), the eggplant emoji (🍆), the skull emoji (💀), the screaming emoji (😱) and, my personal favorite, the cringe emoji (😬).

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear Vermont policymakers envision a slapdash, emoji free-for-all, however. Per Business Insider:

Vermont isn’t about to allow all-emoji license plates any time soon. The bill specifies that any emoji would be “in addition to the 10 distinctive number assigned by the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles or the numerals and letters selected by the registered owner of a vehicle as a vanity plate.” Right now, Vermont has a few rules for vanity plates. According to the DMV, the plate cannot begin with “Z,” and no more than two numbers are allowed. “Dots, dashes or other special characters or symbols cannot be used,” but if the bill passes, that could change soon.


Last March, Queensland, Australia, drivers were permitted to add one of five emojis to their vanity plates. I was hoping the practice wouldn’t spread, but we don’t always get everything we want in life.

If this bill passes, it will indeed make Vermont the first state in the United States to adopt emojis in its license plates. Soon after, this could very well join Vermont’s other most notable U.S. contributions, a list which includes Bernie Sanders, Phish and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.