USA Jumps on the Private Number Plates Ban Wagon

Regular readers (oh, come on... there must be a couple of you by now) will recall earlier posts about the DVLA's knee jerk bans of registration numbers which resemble rude, embarrassing or offensive words. Well, when I say resemble, I mean they sort of do, a bit, if you squint and really exercise a bit of imagination. Seriously, some of the withheld and withdrawn plates could cause offense, but more of them reall bear very little resemblance to anything, and one has to wonder if the DVLA is getting a bit too nervous for its own good.

Still, if their censorship trigger finger is a bit on the twitchy side, they aren't the only ones. The Michigan Secretary of State's office in the USA keeps a list of about 8,000 "bad words" which reportedly covers 27 printed pages. These are words that will not be approved for use on "vanity" plates.

Amongst the supposedly bad words are: H8BUSH, SMOKPOT, BLOODS, COCAINE, 1KILL4U, ALQAIDA and 38DD. We'll leave you to figure them out for yourselves, but don't worry, there are no particularly cryptic combinations there. As with cases in the UK, the indisputably banworthy mix with the relatively harmless.

About 35,000 number plates are issued annually in Michigan and about 350 applications for certain character combinations are declined.

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