Many Truckers Have Bent License Plates, but Is There a Deeper Meaning Behind It?

There are plenty of things that you see in the world that might not seem to have any deeper meaning, but do. Everything from signs to t-shirts have some deeper meaning, and sometimes, that meaning includes what a person's political beliefs are.

Sometimes, though, trends exist for more practical reasons. Some TikTok users have recently noticed that many truckers have bent license plates, and have wondered whether there's some deeper meaning behind the trend. Here's what we know about why they do it.

For once, the meaning here has nothing to do with politics. Instead, truckers bend their license plates for the most practical reason imaginable. They bend their license plates to hide the last number or letter on them so that they can avoid paying tolls and other fines as they travel across the country. It's a little bit of dirty pool, but it's also a perfectly logical explanation for why so many license plates are bent in the same way.

As paying tolls via camera has become more and more common across the country, bending one's license plate gives them the opportunity to avoid paying those tolls. It's not foolproof, but it's a smart way for truckers, who spend much of their time hauling goods across the country, to avoid paying the tolls that might ordinarily come with that kind of cross-country travel.

Of course, when truckers bend their own license plates, they are skirting the law, which says that the plate has to be legible. That's why so many of the bends are precise enough that a police officer driving behind the car would be able to see every character, even if a camera on the side of the road could not.

If you find that your license plate has been bent, the explanation is usually that someone parked too close to your car and bumped you.

If you find that your license plate has been bent and you didn't intend for that to happen, you can always bend the plate back. The metal in a license plate is intentionally fairly malleable, and you can often repair any bends in your license plate just by using your hands.

Of course, that malleability is exactly what allows truckers to bend their plates in a pretty specific way.

Fortunately, though, these bent license plates aren't making any kind of political statement. Enough of the regular world has been made political already, from whether you use straws to how much meat you eat every week.

These truckers are bending their license plates more because it's a life hack that's fairly unique to their profession. Of course, anyone could bend their license plate the same way, but unless you have to pay for a lot of tolls, it might not be worth the risk that comes alongside it.