An interesting take on personalized license plates

[AZhitman]

Is it time to do away with vanity plates?

Author makes some pretty good points: http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/23/opinion/c ... index.html

[PapaSmurf2k3]

I think you should be able to get whatever you want.

You can write/put whatever bumper sticker on your car you want, go ahead and do tags as well.
Then again I'm not very easily offended.

[AZhitman]

Agreed.

All or nothing. But the current system is, upon analysis, totally broken.

[Bubba1]

Agreed.

All or nothing. But the current system is, upon analysis, totally broken.

I find this situation typical of the politically correct obsessed society we live in. Heck, there's a national debate raging about the Washington Redskins name being perceived as offensive to a group of people whose vast majority polled that they have no issue with it. My view is if folks find that name offensive, why not call them the "DC" Redskins instead....(j/k). The answer is not to scrap the NFL, which it sounds like is being suggested for the personalized license plate program.

I'm not opposed to "vanity" license plates, as they can be fun, clever, plus it generates some revenue for the states and some charities. Plus I'll bet the percentage of folks that ran into problems with their choices for being "offensive"(instead of the far more common problem of being already taken by someone else) is rather small. Perhaps there needs to be more clear rules as to what is considered offensive, and some better common sense is required by the censors. We all know there are some things that just do not belong on license plates. And that lack of clarity in the rules is probably aggravated by some over zealous interpretation by some regulators. But I don't see why the whole program needs to be scrapped just because a small percentage don't get exactly what they want.

Despite his non-sexual intent, the guy shoulda known "69" is a well known euphemism for a popular sexual position and anything that contains it will automatically get flagged. Duh! After learning that, If he wanted something to denote SS-RS, he had options. IMHO he just needed to use his mind a little more. For example, try something like "my" before SSRS. And if that's not available, then find something else. Get creative, for cripes sake.

And for the record, 68 is a better sexual euphenism than 69. Not only would 68 pass the censors. it suggests "you do me and I'll owe you one..."

[JTR32gtst]

I agree. I am tired of the "it might offend one person who has no sense of humor, so nobody can do it" mentaility. I enjoy trying to figure out those plates. To me, it is a game. I have gotten pretty good too. I plan to grab a personalized plate for the Skyline once the build is done, but not to offend, but to show the hard work I have done to keep the vehicle going. I too wanted a plate to "stick it to the man" since I have contraband, but decided the unneeded attention would be great to avoid. I was thinking more like "HCR32" or "RBWHA" and I have even seen some get pretty good. One consideration was "MNI ZLA" for mini "zilla or mini godzilla since it is a GTST but a highly modified one.

In short, I approve of personal plates, I approve of sensoring sexually explicit ones (I mean, its not hard to come up with that stuff, not creative) and let us be.

[MinisterofDOOM]

I take issue with the fact that most of the world's population spends much of its time looking for things that they can become offended by. In this form or any other, it's disgusting. It's the same issue I take with political correctness and other forms of preventative reactionism. These days, nobody needs to even actually get offended for something to be declared offensive. There only needs to exist an imagined possibility that an imagined individual might take imagined offense at some suggested comment, remark, image, or other ideal.

It's yet another of the many aspects of the overwhelming "hide from everything that might possibly be unsafe" mentality that has devolved the human race from bold explorers (of knowledge and ideas as much as land and space) into a pack of helpless self-obsessed stagnant asses. We're so risk-averse we've gone backward.

Anyone who chooses to get offended by what they see on a license plate or a bumper sticker does not deserve to breathe air on this planet. And yes, I said CHOOSES. It's a CHOICE to become offended. Only the weak-willed and weak-minded allow themselves to be overcome by irritation with a statement SOMEONE ELSE THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW has made.

Shut up and, as the Eagles so eloquently said: Get over it. The only thing that GENUINELY offends me is people who think anyone else actually cares whether something has offended THEM.

As far as personalized plates:
99% of them are dumber than a bag of rabid skunks in fridge. And most of THOSE are "inside jokes" that only two or three people would ever understand. And most of those were dumb jokes that weren't funny in the first place.
I've thought about getting a vanity plate such as "DOOM" or "I heart V8s" but the reality is I want to be noticed LESS, not more. It's just a way to stand out. I would like to blend in. Which is why I drive a white geezermobile and not a chromed SLR McLaren. Well, that and the money. But mostly I'm not a douchebag. I just happen to be a not-rich not-douchebag.

[alms24sebring]

GIVNOFUX

lol at KRAKHED. Ive seen some pretty wild stuff. One that I remember was one with a heart emblem on the left and it said HS GIRLS. Awesome I must say...

[Dattebayo]

I personally think we should be able to put "f*ck you" on a license plate if we want. When you think about it, there could only be 500 some "f*ck you" plates in the whole US, with all the variations, so what does it matter? Censorship is only relevant in uneducated and oppressed parts of the world anyway.

[TurboSauce]

[AZhitman]

there could only be 500 some "f*ck you" plates in the whole US, with all the variations

What variations?

You can't have the same number/letter combo as any other plate in the same state, regardless of "variation." Ergo, only 50. (And I'm sure POTUS would reserve the District of Columbia one) .

I could be wrong, but that's the way it is in every state I know of.

[Bubba1]

there could only be 500 some "f*ck you" plates in the whole US, with all the variations

What variations?

You can't have the same number/letter combo as any other plate in the same state, regardless of "variation." Ergo, only 50. (And I'm sure POTUS would reserve the District of Columbia one) .

I could be wrong, but that's the way it is in every state I know of.

By variations he means alternate spellings/pronunciations like "FUK YOU" , "FUC U", "FUQ YOO" , "FU KEW", or "FUH Q". There's literally dozens of 'em if you think about it just for THAT one phrase by itself. It's a funny idea, (and seems oddly appropropriate for a Congressman's license plate), but it's unlikely to ever get approved.

[Hijacker]

I have quite a few contentions with this article. The author is clearly trying to stir the pot on a non-issue. Should vanity plates be outlawed? FFS, no. Is it unconstitutional? I highly doubt it. It's obvious that some states are going a bit too far in their regulation, but it's more of a numbers game. Is it better to deny applications and get a small percentage of blowback from those denied applications, or allow the "offensive" plates and have a larger blowback from overly sensitive morons?

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/20 ... her-states

An outraged citizen in Washington State forced a hearing of its Department of Licensing’s Personalized License Plate Committee after seeing a tag reading GOES211 on the road. He thought the phrase, which comes from the movie This Is Spinal Tap and describes amplifier volume, referred to another kind of measurement

I mean PLEASE. This s*** pisses me off to no end.

Infidel should have been allowed, there's no denying that. Michigan should be more specific (as should Georgia, Nevada, Indiana and a ton of other states). I've noticed after doing some searching that the states are using the same vague legal wording to give a higher authoritative power to their regulators. Most likely to err on the side of pissing the least amount of people off.

Virginia is a bit more implicit on what is proper and what is not. The commonwealth doesn't publish its list of no-no plates, but it does mention on its DMV website this:

he Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will not approve an application for a personalized license plate if the requested plate contains any combination of characters that in any way carries a connotation which may reasonably be seen by a person viewing the license plate as:

Profane, obscene, or vulgar in nature;
Sexually explicit or graphic;
Excretory-related;
Used to describe intimate body parts or genitals;
Used to describe drugs, drug culture, or drug use;
Used to condone or encourage violence;
Used to describe illegal activities or illegal substances;

Not quite so vague, but it gives a better list of what can and cannot be utilized.

A dismantling of the PLP programs nationwide is a retarded request by a pedantic law professor who seriously is trying to reach for an issue to get worked up over. Perhaps Professor Cevallos should have done a bit more research into what states are doing to improve their rules and regulations as opposed to just clamoring for a revocation of what he terms an "unconstitutional scheme." His disdain for vanity plates sours the entire article, but since its an opinion piece from academia, I probably shouldn't expect any form of objective deliberation and looking at this issue from multiple angles, just his one, obviously biased viewpoint.