opinion
Some mysterious personal plates are a public service.It's a shame to ban something that we all enjoy.
Publication date: May 13, 2024
The DVLA was recently ordered to publish the full list of number plates banned in the March '24' cycle following a Freedom of Information request. All license plates are considered a danger to right-thinking citizens. Are there investigative journalists behind this request? Plates4Less, a website that sells personalized license plates.
Now, personally, I'd rather put my most delicate limbs in the air fryer than drive around with a customized plate. But hey, this is a free country, and if you're the kind of person who spends your monthly salary on a combination of letters and numbers that vaguely resembles your name, you're a) pretty squinted and b) can't spell it. Knock yourself on the condition that. Outside.
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That is, unless your name happens to resemble one of the 330 or so recently banned combos. That said, the DVLA has certainly published its prohibited list in its entirety (i.e., rather undermining its “not causing crime” principle), and it's certainly… not as offensive as you'd expect. No, I'm sorry.
Admittedly, some of the list can be interpreted as at least a little rude, such as GO24 HEL, SH24 GGD, BO24 LOC. However, many of the “aggressive” plates are unreasonable to say the least. Example: GB24 DWN. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, but unless “bzadwn” is some new slang for the properly incorrect “United Nations”, I'm not convinced that this should be deciphered as “Britain, 2024, Down”. I think it's intentional.
As I squinted my eyes at the list, I felt very sorry for the poor lackeys at the DVLA, who were responsible for checking every alphanumeric combination for a possible crime. “But wait a minute. If a car falls upside down in a ditch and every other letter on the license plate spontaneously combusts, an innocent passerby could misread that as 'no'…”
Here's the banned plate that really fascinated me: AF24 ART. Yes, we all know (almost) what that says. But why ban it? Does anyone really make their day worse when they see a combination of letters and numbers that loosely nod to natural bodily functions? “Margaret, how horrible! Until I found that plate, I completely forgot about the human tendency to release internal gas. This is even worse than when I found the sign for a public restroom…”
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This nation disagrees on many points. But we are united by this universal truth. Unless you have the misfortune of getting stuck in an elevator in a particularly egregious case, reverse burping can be funny. If there are a few sensitive souls who find AF24 ART (or UF24 ART, FF24 ART, or any other farting-related plate on the banned list) and are mildly offended, surely their pain is a pleasure to experience? would be much larger than By the young children of our country and the young children at heart?
Come on, DVLA. A regular personal number plate is simply not enough. Don't make things worse by banning things we might actually enjoy.
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