DVLA turns censor on grubby number plates

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has swooped to protect Britain from mechanised filth peddlers who it suspects will exploit the new "57" number plates to mount a terrifying campaign of highway ribaldry. The new plates will allow drivers to spell "ST" or "SY", opening the floodgates to a torrent of eye-watering …

[Anonymous Coward]

San Francisco

Have you seen QPR play? Quite right too.

TeeCee

[Kevin Thorn]

can I still have...

FI57 ING then?

[Anonymous Coward]

This has got to be a MI57 AKE (mistake)

Or is it a PI57 AKE (pis take) on the PO57 URE (posture) of the DVLA? After all they make enough money, what with PO57 AGE (postage) costs to send stuff all over the place.

A very HO57 ILE (Hostile) attitude to have :)

[David]

6ULDV8

6ULDV8 it's all we want to be!

[Rob]

I bet...

Heinz is upset...

[Adrian Jones]

'Snot just 57!

They've changed Edinburgh's prefix from SN to TN for the 07 plate, since SN07 looks too much like that offensive word, SNOT.

The Beeb had a piece on it here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/6897494.stm

[SImon Hobson]

DVLA is proof of government hypocrisy !

On the one hand they keep saying that the incorrect arrangement of the digits is illegal, and of course if no-one ever did this then a lot of the numbers sold would be worthless.

But of course they can make a lot of money from selling such plates, so give themselves immunity from prosecution. If the number issuing agnecy was a private business then I'm damn sure they'd have been prosecuted for actively encouraging people to break the law by sellling numbers that only make sense if you use incorreclty laid out formatting.

So 'bad is bad' unless HMG can make money from it !

[Dave Murray]

Easy Gal?

If 57 is supposed to represent ST then surely

EA57 GAL = EAST GAL

A perfectly reasonable numberplate for someone from the east, rather than the EASY GAL suggested in the article.

[Anonymous Coward]

Boring old 571n ker!

But what can you expect from a bunch of p57c hos?

[Anonymous Coward]

They deserve a good FI57 ING

Or indeed a RO57 ING

[Nano nano]

More dirt

So I take it they're not planning any action against those number plates which appear to have been "accidentally" sprayed with mud in order to avoid recognition by those "spies on the gantry" or the parked white vans with the empty back windows (a.k.a. safety cameras) ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Boring!

I was well miffed that I couldn't have AA94 RSE.

But plenty of registrations in the format AA99 KKK are available. I find the KKK much more offensive than 4RSE.

Maybe the DVLA should actually publish a set of consistent rules?

[Andy Kavanagh]

Shame they haven't clamped down in previous years...

...to save my eyes from the ugly bloke who overtook me last week in "LUV 269X"

[Steven]

Boredom in Swansea...

Overzealous Welsh BA57ARD5...

;)

[Mark Rendle]

MO57 GAY

That is all.

[Hrishikesh]

What about more offensive plates?

Just yesterday I saw a plate **** KKK. If this is allowed, why block someone that wants to declare themselves as an EA57 GAL?

[Anonymous Coward]

Abstain?

AB57AIN

[A J Stiles]

Hmm

My mother drives a Daewoo Matiz. She was thinking of trading it in for a newer example of the same model. But the Daewoo badge has been retired, so her new Matiz this Autumn will be a 57 Chevrolet!

I personally think the best new-style number plate will appear in six and a half years' time. Somewhere up in the Newcastle area, a plate will be issued reading "NE14ABJ" !

[Patch Tuesday]

bit late....

there must be hundreds out there already for other combinations.

only this morning I saw S Foster on the way to work (SF 05 TER?).

[Patch Tuesday]

oops.

actually that's not a very good example. there's no obsenity.

sorry.

[Anonymous Coward]

??st???

A quick check with a crossword solver gives several possibilities:

bestial

bustier

dastard

fisting

gestapo

lusting

lustier

lustily

lusting

pustule

[Graham Marsden]

Hmm...

MO57 SAD !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

FI57 ING?

Only good one I could think of ...

[Anonymous Coward]

SN07

Car licence plates which bear the sequence SN07 were banned from the streets of Edinburgh because they are "offensive". This was reported on Friday, 13 July 2007.

The 57 plates were not only casualties.

-figjam

[Anonymous Coward]

57UP 1D

57UP 1D, 57UP 1D, 57UP 1D....

Maybe we can 57OP this madness if we all 57AND together.

[Anonymous Coward]

QPR FC?

Surely any such number plate constituts a breach of good taste?

[Pete]

I remember...

...the LA57 ONE I ordered from the DVLA got censored. It seems that in this day and age that correctness is a MU57 HAV policy.

They must be paying somebody a wage to sit there and try to figure out what's to be censored - No wonder they CO57 LOT of money nowdays.

PET 3R

[Anonymous Coward]

Fools

I read that they are also banning numbers starting with SN07, because... it apparently spells "snot".

No it does not. It spells "SN07".

[Anonymous Coward]

Double whammy

I suppose you could stick the plate HU57LER onto an Escort for a double-whammy of grumble mag titles....

[Anonymous Coward]

Lots of choice...

grep -i '^..st.\{1,3\}$' /usr/share/lib/dict/words | more

(just throwing in an IT angle there)

A few selected ones

BE57 IAL

DE57 INY

DU57 BIN

DU57 Y

FE57 IVE

GE57 APO

HO57 ILE

JU57 ICE

LE57 ER (another IT angle...)

LU57 FUL

NA57 Y

WA57 REL

and many more...

[Howard Phillis]

How about...

EA57 LAY or LU57 FUL?

[Gavin Nottage]

CU57ARD

So I guess Ambrosia or Birds-Eye etc will start a bidding war for CU57ARD

No doubt that FA57CAR will go quick, and twin girls will want to be seen driving around in SI57ERS.

[Graham Bartlett]

Maybe they'll learn new words at DVLA

One in particular:

CU57OMR

Mind you, they can already spell:

HA55LES

AS54OLE

PI55ANT

And now they have the scope for:

WA57ERS

U R 57UFD

[ian]

There's an old style mini in SF

with the plate "SHAG ME". Clearly the vernacular passed by the US authorities

[Dillon Pyron]

Old plates

When I was at Texas A&M back in the 70s, I saw a car with QQQQ and a Corvette with 2 FAST.

I haven't checked to see if H4X0R is taken. Or L337. I've seen 5HI7. Now that the Brits have discovered L337, I wonder how long before TxDOT figures it out. Probably another 5 or 6 years.

[Anonymous Coward]

DVLA, bunch off..

Ruin our fun the damn BU57 BOD (s)

[Anonymous Coward]

WLTM

BU57 GAL

7=Y

[Anonymous Coward]

All I want for christmas...

Is my name on my reg plate so people know who owns the car... it's not too much to ask is it?

After all, C11NTS couldn't be misread as anything else.

I promise not to park in the Sales parking spaces at the office.

[Anonymous Coward]

All I want for christmas...

Is my name on my reg plate so people know who owns the car... it's not too much to ask is it?

After all, C11NTS couldn't be misread as anything else.

I promise not to park in the Sales parking spaces at the office.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheap method of getting a personalised number...

Simply change your name by deed poll to whatever your car number plate says!

yours sincerely,

M893HKD

[Paul Banacks]

Taxpayers money...

I imagine some wanker at the DVLA is burning up our money spent on his salary whilst he spends the day searching for numberplates that might cause offence to wierdo's who think that "57" somehow spells "ST".

I imagine anyone who takes offence to this kind of thing probably takes offence to everyday words thinking "If I change that 4 to an S" it says shithead! OMG what an offence.

Dick heads.

[Anonymous Coward]

Will it take

REKNAW?

Best plate I've ever seen. Read it backwards :)

[Alex]

Don't forget Florida

http://www.snopes.com/photos/risque/license.asp

[Daniel Ballado-Torres]

MA57 ERS

heh... though I'd maybe go for

BE57 PFY

LA57 PFY

I remember reading somewhere that it took years for somewhere in the US to ban 3M TA3 ...

Read on a Mirror, it would say EAT ME.

[Dave H]

Scooters

A mate of mine bought a new scooter a few years back, and was given a choice of number plates. He eventually decided on BU51 TOJ (Busy Todge).

Mind you, the job we had at the time seemed to involve 10% coding, 40% insulting each other and everyone else, and 50% finding an innuendo in any statement made...

[Foxhill]

Yawn

Oh who cares, it's just the usual old crap trundled out with the new plates.

When the 08's come out - no doubt we'll have all the 'hilarious' stories about them using '08' as 'ob', as if this is somehow a revelation...

[Chris]

I miss my adolescence.

57IF FY

MOI5 7BV

57IC KME

PI57 OFF

PIAN I57

PUS5 7

PAL5 7

MO5T COK

57UF FME

57RA PON

57RA DLE

57RI P4U

57EA LME

[Anonymous Coward]

that reminds me

speaking of adolescence

55378008

[Bob Boswell]

A long time ago...

In the mid 70's or thereabouts , parked in the school car park, an MG with the reg FAL 1C ( this was when MGs were sports cars)

[Luca Spiller]

The DVLA can...

EM33 TIB

[Anonymous Coward]

Simon (Hobson) ...

> But of course they can make a lot of money from selling such plates, so give themselves immunity from prosecution.

Immumity from prosecution for doing what, exactly...? They aren't committing any offences by selling these...

> If the number issuing agnecy was a private business ...

Errrrmmmm... actually, technically, it is (it's the DVLA, "A" = "Agency").

> ... then I'm damn sure they'd have been prosecuted for actively encouraging people to break the law...

No, they wouldn't... they're not "aiding, abetting, counselling, or procuring" the summary offence of failing to correctly display the Vehicle Registration Mark (VRM) because they only sell the entitlement to *use* the mark - the spacing on the plates is the responsibility of the person driving the car on a road at the time. By the way, it's a fixed penalty offence, and repeat offenders displaying the VRM with incorrect spacing can have the entitlement to use that VRM withdrawn by DVLA, with *no* right of appeal or financial reimbursement whatsoever.

So, if someone else is using your favourite VRM, and you want it, encourage them to space it incorrectly, then rat on them to the DVLA, preferably enclosing a photo of the heinous offender with aforementioned offending VRM... :-)

[Antony King]

Custom plate foolishness

What kind of fool pays for a custom plate anyway ?

[Acidbass]

ACID

They wouldn't let me have any combination that spelled acid, which is a bit sh17 as they didn't actually ask me whether i was an old hippy or a chemist.

They wouldn't let me have LSD either.

[Anonymous Coward]

snigger

CUM57AINS

[Anonymous Coward]

First Amendment

Happily, here in the land of the free, things are so much easier - in my state of residence the Dept of Motor Vehicles kindly provides an internet-based service to allow you to choose your "vanity plate" - any combination of up to 6 numbers/letters. The system tells you if your requested combination is permissible - via this system I have established that the following licence plates are available for issue: WANKER, TOSSER, SOD OFF, UP YRS, SOD YOU and FAT GIT. BUGGER has already been issued.

The agony of choice!

[stuart Thompson]

D0 U S33

A5 1 517 h3r3 1 can7 h3lp wond3r1ng wha7 7he fa5c1na71on w17h 7r71ng 7o 5pell 7h1ng7 w17h number5 15, fr0m numb3r pla735 7ha7 n0b0dy n0t1c35 7hr0ugh 70 7h3 1d1075 0n 7he 1n7erne7 wh0 1n5157 on 7alk1ng 1n 1nd3c1ph3rabl3 c0mb1na710n5 0f le77er5 and half w0rd5,

w1ll 7h353 p30pl3 pl3a53 s0rt 17 0u7

If this post seems to be complete gibberish then i think i have made my point loud and clear.

57uar7