File this under “Useless trivia that only Mike and Karen would find interesting.”

Indiana license plates use an ingenious system that informs you of the origin of the car just by looking at the first two numbers. The number represents the county by alphabetical order. Adams County is 01, Whitley County is 92.

When we first moved to Little Rock, we noticed several Indiana plates. Ah, a little piece of home. One day Karen came home and said, “Hey, I saw a Columbus car getting onto 430 today.” (Columbus is our hometown, Bartholomew County, 03) Then, a week or so later, I saw a Columbus car, then another and another. I would see them on the interstate, at the grocery store, or just going down the street. Really strange. Bartholomew County is about 70,000 people, 40,000 of which live in Columbus. Seeing one 03 Indiana plate in Little Rock would be a rarity let alone seeing several a month.

We finally saw a lady getting out of a “Columbus car” in the zoo parking lot sometime last Summer and discovered that they are rental cars. For some reason, most of the cars of a local rental place (not sure which one) have Indiana plates with a large percentage of those being from Bartholomew County.

If you read this far… like I said, at least its interesting to Karen and I…]]>