I tried to read the license plates of 50 cars in a Target parking lot in Charlotte and learned I totally forgot how the letter O works

Ben Campbell · 2026-10-03T19:25:03.821568+00:00

Last Saturday I sat in my car in the Target lot on South Blvd for about 45 minutes and wrote down every plate I could see, just to test if I could still do it fast. I used to be weirdly good at reading plates as a kid, like a party trick. What I did not expect was that I kept messing up O vs zero and I vs 1, and I could not tell if the font on newer plates was the problem or if my brain just got lazy. I wrote down 50 plates and when I double checked 12 of them by walking past later, I had 4 of them wrong. The weird part is I was fastest and most accurate on the old white plates, and I was slowest on the ones with the tiny state name on top. Now I want to know if anyone else who does this or does plate spotting has a trick for telling O from zero, because clearly guessing is not cutting it for me.

🐿️Pinecone Attack

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I tried to read the license plates of 50 cars in a Target parking lot in Charlotte and learned I totally forgot how the letter O works | Ask a Weird Expert - Pinecone Attack