Plates carry a story

THE Territory's unique personalised car number plates have been the fascination of one fanatic who wants to write a book about the quirky stories behind them.

Vivien Joseph

THE Territory's unique personalised car number plates have been the fascination of one fanatic who wants to write a book about the quirky stories behind them.

Vivien Joseph was taken with the variety of number plates in the Territory when she moved from Adelaide in May 2011 and has been documenting them since.

She took night classes to learn to build a website and has uploaded 5000 rego plates in the hope that their owners will add to the 400 stories already online.

Her favourite has been BADNANA. "She took some alcohol into an Elton John concert and her kids told her she was a bad nana and bought her the rego plate," the 57-year-old from Ludmilla, Darwin, said.

The social worker gathers them from carparks in Darwin city, Casuarina, Karama, and Palmerston.

"I just go around carparks with my little green camera and leave cards on windscreen wipers and hope they call me," she said.

"People are very proud of them - it reflects their personality. They're just delighted to tell their stories.

"I think it's something the Northern Territory offers that nowhere else offers."

Ms Joseph has been beavering away on the website and plate-collecting with a broken shoulder since June, when she fell at the South Australian Rose of Tralee ball, where her only daughter, Hannah, was a contestant.

"I was looking real sexy in my dress and high-heels and then I fell over and broke my shoulder," she said.

She doesn't have a personalised plate on her own car but is still thinking of one apart from her daughter's suggestion: WEIRDO.

Territory personalised plates are popular because they among the cheapest in Australia.

See numberplatestories.net to check if you've been papped.