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And I'm inclined to agree with this opinion (below in quotes) as I find myself often using the W adjective to personal plate drivers who more often seem to be more the aggressive/ hooning/ tailgating/ and/or lane switching drivers. But that's probably why they and their ego chose the personalised plates rather than the plates influencing their behaviour. Yes there are some perfectly well behaved drivers with personalised plates but there does seem from my casual observation to be more bad drivers that have personalised plates. Still half as bad as the old Ute driver who followed me a few inches from my bumper while I maintained the speed limit the other day with "U Are The C**T" printed in reverse on his bonnet, and on another occasion I saw him switch at the last minute from the right lane to take a left lane exit he'd already passed on the Roe Freeway cutting across the painted island and forcing to cars to brake heavily. A road rage issue just waiting to happen.

https://skepticlawyer.com.au/2008/07...-numberplates/

I’ve noticed that there seems to be a general correlation between stupidity of personalised number plate and recklessness of driver. The more ridiculous the personalised number plate, generally, the more reckless the driver. So people who just have their initials on their number plates are usually pretty much like any other drivers, but someone who has a red number plate with SPRMAN* on it is pretty much guaranteed to be a hoon. I’ve noticed a number of trends in personalised number plates:

Young girls with pink number plates saying MISS21 (obviously a 21st birthday present) or BARBIE or something like that;
Cars with cartoon character name plates – for example, a yellow car with a number plate saying TWEETY;
Guys with some macho number plate, like ZOOMER, or FREEEK, or HANSUM (the cars tend to have spoilers, those little lights underneath and the low profile alloy wheels as well);
People of all sorts with incomprehensible personalised number plates, for example GFRICK (what the hell does that mean? why get a number plate that no one will understand?);
Business vans – for example, a van for a cleaning company with a number plate like CLEENA (this one I can understand, and have more sympathy for).

I wonder if anyone has done a statistical analysis of personalised number plate drivers and traffic violations? Do personalised number plate drivers have a greater amount of speeding tickets than the rest of us, or is it just my imagination that there is a correlation between personalised number plates and stupid driving habits? My husband was theorising that personalised number plates stick in the memory more, and thus, it’s easier to remember hoons with personalised number plates than those without. But even taking into account that effect, I still think there is some kind of correlation.

If there is a correlation between personalised number plates and reckless driving, why would this be so? Perhaps it’s something to do with pride in one’s car and in one’s driving skills – a person with a personalised number plate is more likely to put extra care into his or her car, and perhaps to think that they have driving skills and capabilities beyond that of the average bear.

and it pointed me to what was probably the research I was trying to find:

A commenter has pointed out that a psychological study has actually concluded that people who personalise their car (with personal number plates, stickers and the like) are more likely to be aggressive on the road.

So I’m not delusional.

Drivers who individualize their cars using bumper stickers, window decals and personalized license plates, the researchers hypothesized, see their cars in the same way as they see their homes and bedrooms — as deeply personal space, or primary territory.

Unlike any environment our evolutionary ancestors might have confronted, driving a car simultaneously places people in both private territory — their cars — and public territory — the road. Drivers who personalize their cars with bumper stickers and other markers of private territory, the researchers argue, forget when they are on the road that they are in public territory because the immediate cues surrounding them tell them that they are in a deeply private space.

“If you are in a vehicle that you identify as a primary territory, you would defend that against other people whom you perceive as being disrespectful of your space,” Bell [one of the researchers] added. “What you ignore is that you are on a public roadway — you lose sight of the fact you are in a public area and you don’t own the road.”

and https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...T2008061502199 and this related study from QUT in Queensland; https://eprints.qut.edu.au/9416/