TIME nation

The Best State License Plate Is …

Courtesy Wyoming Department of Transportation

The winner is also the rarest.

You don’t have to be a museum lover to appreciate fine art. Take the lowly license plate, which appears to have brought out the art snob in drivers across the country, thanks to a new survey that asks people to pick their favorite.

Wyoming tops the list so far, and for good reason. Featuring a cowboy riding a bucking bronco and a snow-capped mountain range in the distance, the colorful plate is also the rarest in the country since the Cowboy State is the least populous and has the fewest registered vehicles. The design’s also got pedigree. Dating back to 1918, the trademarked Bucking Horse & Rider image was first used as the insignia on uniforms worn by the Wyoming National Guard during World War I.

Other plates in the top five are easy on the eyes too: Utah’s cool rock formations earned second place, while the “Sweet Home” Alabama plate came in third – probably because there’s no place you’d rather be than back home when stuck in rush-hour traffic.

Here are the complete Best and Worst plates as judged by more than 4,000 respondents to the CarInsurance.com survey:

license-plate-rankings

Disagree? Then vote for yourself here.

Tap to read full story

Your browser is out of date. Please update your browser at http://update.microsoft.com


YOU BROKE TIME.COM!

Dear TIME Reader,

As a regular visitor to TIME.com, we are sure you enjoy all the great journalism created by our editors and reporters. Great journalism has great value, and it costs money to make it. One of the main ways we cover our costs is through advertising.

The use of software that blocks ads limits our ability to provide you with the journalism you enjoy. Consider turning your Ad Blocker off so that we can continue to provide the world class journalism you have become accustomed to.

The TIME Team