IH8YRST8
by Jess Stoner
Studying drivers across the country for signs of license-plate prejudice—or, why everyone loves Vermont drivers and hates Texans.
An excerpt -
I learned something new when we moved back to Colorado from Texas last year: People who live so far above sea level have razor-edged opinions about outsiders.
While I procrastinated for weeks in getting new license plates, drivers wouldn’t let me change lanes—sometimes informing me of their refusal with their middle fingers—one even gleefully made the Longhorns hand gesture when he cut me off.
I swear, I am a classically trained defensive driver. It wasn’t my driving. It was my Texas plates.
The prejudices that arise when drivers encounter different state license plates are largely unstudied. This is unfortunate because, according to my field research, they play a role in determining driver behavior and they reinforce stereotypes many drivers didn’t even realize they held.
For example, Coloradans’ dislike for Texans might be explained by the fact that they’re moving here. According to the Census Bureau, 24,431 people who lived in Texas in 2013 had listed Colorado as their place of residence a year later, versus the 18,277 Coloradans moving to Texas in that same period.
But Bill Marvel explained in a 2008 article for Denver’s 5280 magazine, “Don’t Mess With Colorado,” that the state’s hatred for all things Texas could be as ancient as the latter’s 19th-century “territorial ambitions.” Or that it might be the result of the real-life versions of The Simpsons’ Rich Texan who move north and mess with Coloradans’ livestock and screw over skiers and hikers by privatizing trails. Or maybe it’s simply a reaction to Texans like Walter Cliff of Amarillo, who was so pissed when he couldn’t find a Bud Light on his Colorado vacation in 2012 that he wrote a letter to the editor of the Durango Herald: “Heads up, Durango, not everyone likes that locally brewed beer.”
http://www.themorningnews.org/article/ih8yrst8
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