"What are the odds?" I See an "Imagine" John Lennon License Plate in Florida

The current zeitgeist surrounding the The Beatles: Get Back documentary on Disney+ has elicited a question for me - how likely is it for me to see the rare specialty Florida license plate of "Imagine", depicting John Lennon?

Back in 2003 when it was introduced, there were around 50 types of specialty license plates in the state of Florida, per the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Now there are almost 150 - and the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has all of this data public and readily available, including via some nice interactive Tableau dashboards.

As of December 2021, there are 1.9m registered specialty plates out there in the state - and 14k of those are "Imagine", ranking 39th. That's 0.8% - or 1 in 132 specialty plates.

But most cars don't have a specialty plate - there are 16.3m registered autos and pickups in Florida. "Imagine" plates make up 0.086% of this total - or 1 in 1,158.

At $25 in donation per plate, the "Imagine" plate is currently raising $352k per year for Florida Food Banks, and $4.8m all-time through August 2021. All specialty plates combined are raising $46.5m in donations per year! This doesn't include specialty plates currently in pre-sale, including the new plate benefiting Florida State Parks.

The current top 10 are below, with "Helping Sea Turtles Survive" overtaking the #2 spot over University of Florida's plate compared to 2020:

"Endless Summer", supporting Surfing's Evolution & Preservation, is #1, representing 6% of all specialty plates, and 0.7% of all registered Florida autos/pickups.

Disclosure: my household currently has the "Tampa Bay Rays" plate and has pre-ordered the "Florida State Parks" plate, and in the past has had the "Helping Sea Turtles Survive" and "Save the Manatee" plates. The full lists can be found here and here.