The Culture of Licence Plates

If you are an Emirati it's simple: you have too much money and for the most part, you don't know what to do with it. With Oil reaching upwards to $110 a barrel, this trend will continue for some time to come

So what happens when an excess of money hits a culture that 50 years ago lived in tribes and tents along the Gulf and in the desert? Simple: they take advantage of it - Big Time.

Putting aside the mega projects, the absurd growth in every industry, and rapid expansion which the likes has never been seen before in history, little cultural oddities arise that make the visitor shake their heads and have a little chuckle.

The culture of license plates is indeed perhaps one of the best examples of this. In a time when cars no longer matter as everyone who is anyone already drives the Hummers, Bentleys, Rolls Royces, Lambos and Ferraris a new status symbol has surpassed that of cars themselves. Your license plate number now represents not only how much money you have, but how powerful you are.

You see so many expensive and luxurious cars that you become numb to it all. I now immediately look at their license plate to give them any real 'street cred'. A drop top Mercedes AMG 450 is nice to look at. An Audi R8 with the license plate number of 10 tells you that this guy is the shit. A custom silver bullet colour Hummer is behind you, you move out of the way. A slick black Maserati is behind you with the number plate of 2222, you get out of it's way and move 2 lanes over.

I've even seen a Porshe with 212 drive up next to a red Lambo trying to show off it's 43812. The battle on the roads was won instantaneously, as the Lambo backed down and let the Porsche speed up ahead of him.

The muscle of this culture is money, and the proof of this was best flexed a month ago with a public auction in Abu Dhabi for well-to-do numbered license plates, for well to do Emiratis. The license plate 1 went for over $14 million US. This was for a license plate people. Other hot numbers were 11, 17, 22, 88, and 101.... - get the point? All proceeds of this auction went to charity to help road accident victims, but it still is an awful lot of money.

Although I can witness the culture, I have so status in the echelons of this high society. I'm jus glad my Nissan Tida with 587684 has air conditioning.