Colorado puts brakes on license plate abbreviations
By Kevin Flynn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published July 28, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.
Updated July 28, 2008 at 3:23 p.m.
Photo by Charles Chamberlin / The Rocky
LOL!! The growth of text messaging abbreviations is adding to the list of prohibited letter combinations on Colorado license plates.
WTF, a cyberspace-saving abbreviation for, to put it more mildly, "What the heck is going on here," has been added to a lengthy list of 261 three-letter combinations that the state considers verboten on the standard-issue six-character plate.
OMG! What's next?
It used to be that motor vehicle officials had to worry only about the sexually offensive, racially bigoted, scatologically suggestive or biologically functioning references. Now they need a 14-year-old iPhone 3G-carrying technogeek member of the committee to pass on some of the tri-letter possibilities.
Each prohibited letter combination leads to 1,000 potential plates taken out of circulation. That means more than a quarter million plates you'll never see on the road.
The list has been kept for at least 18 years by the Colorado Department of Revenue, which oversees the Motor Vehicle Division and its license plates. The committee that meets irregularly to go over the list also includes representatives from county clerks and the Department of Corrections - yes, state inmates still stamp out the plates, and who better to consult with regarding the latest three-letter slang terminology for drug use and crime?
"Just standard common knowledge practices," said Maren Rubino of the Department of Revenue. "Standard common practices are: any combination of letters or numbers that carry connotations offensive to good taste and decency, are misleading, offensive to the general public, or represent gang, drug, sex, racial terms."
The list is updated periodically, especially when the state goes to a new numbering system.
Charter members of the list are obvious ones you've never seen on a green-and- white tag: KKK, ASS and any derivative of the king of banished words, the one that begins with F.
Others have been added to the list even though they might have been issued in the past, such as GAG.
GAY and FAG are on the prohibited list but FGT isn't. Nor can you drive like HEL or have a DUI, although you could be stopped for D.U.I. You can't be a COP or with the CIA, FBI or CSP, but your plate can say DPD.
You'll find no HOE, HOR or HQR cruising the streets.
Doesn't it stink that you can't have a plate that says PEW? No POO or PEE either. You can't be DUM although you can drive like you are. And is it unfair that the crazy woman driver ahead of you can't get a plate with PMS on it, or the road-rager guy can't have SOB?
And you won't get a UFO plate no matter how bizarre your ride looks.
Even if you're Just Married, you can't get WED. And HUY may seem innocuous unless you speak Russian. But take it from us, you wouldn't drive around Moscow with it.
Your plate can't be a JEW or a JAP or a HUN or a WOP. GOD can't be your co-pilot. Nor can DOG or an ark of living creatures including CAT, SOW, PUP, APE, PIG, HOG, HEN, RAT and BUG, although you might wish the state could ban the ones smeared across your windshield.
Perhaps the oddest prohibition is the seemingly harmless MOO. Is the state afraid you might get a chuckle at the red light if you stopped behind a car that mooed?
No, says Rubino. It stems from a lawsuit in another state where a driver who weighed more than 400 pounds had been issued a MOO plate, making said driver the object of humiliation. Colorado wanted to avoid similar legal liability. So, for the same reason, you can't get a plate with FAT, HAG, BIG or TUB.
flynnk@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5247
Three-letter combos
There is a rhyme and a reason that each of 261 specific three-letter combos are banned on Colorado license plates. But dang if state workers can recall why some of them made the X-list. XOJ, XOK and XIL won't show up on your bumpers, but Maren Rubino of the Colorado Department of Revenue says the reason has been lost to the ages.
Some of them will have you scratching your head until they're explained:
* DUB: slang for a doobie, a marijuana cigarette.
* JEB: short for Jezebel.
* AMO: short for ammunition.
* NUG: slang for a nugget of crack cocaine.
* ZIG: reference to Zig Zag rolling papers for a DUB. While ZIG is prohibited, ZAG is not.
Why would DOG and CAT make the list? ASB, EAK, HAM, QVA, MEA or LAV?
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July 28, 2008
1:25 a.m.
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SL10 writes:
Man, oh man. This article made my night. *still LMSAO*
July 28, 2008
2:36 a.m.
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misterchinaski writes:
i always was on the lookout for 420-pot but i guess i'll never see it.
July 28, 2008
3:27 a.m.
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SL10 writes:
I would love to get a plate with the letters GAJ = Get A Job. When I see a fake homeless on the corner begging for drug money. I can say look at my plate. lol.
July 28, 2008
6:57 a.m.
Suggest removal
candigrl writes:
And our tax dollars PAY for this RESEARCH... So glad to see we are using it so wisely! Spare me!
July 28, 2008
7:27 a.m.
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LingLingfor_prez writes:
Slow news day...
July 28, 2008
7:31 a.m.
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Dusty_Piniella writes:
I once saw this on a license plate.... MSTRB8S........explain that one!!! LOL!
July 28, 2008
7:36 a.m.
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peter303 writes:
Politically correct gone amuck again. Sigh.
July 28, 2008
8:13 a.m.
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Scott writes:
The really pathetic thing is that our tax dollars are paying a snivel serpent to determine that MOO, DOG, CAT, etc are evil and wicked. Fire this pathetic loser and use their salary to help fill pot-holes!
Scott
July 28, 2008
9:06 a.m.
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Lesh writes:
Glad I got ROFL before the new law
July 28, 2008
9:13 a.m.
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cterryr2 writes:
This is a violation of free speech. Only some people refer to those abbreviations as such. Also a big waste of time and energy. Free our freedoms.
July 28, 2008
9:58 a.m.
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Dude writes:
I wanted a plate with "FAAAQ", got denied though.
July 28, 2008
10:08 a.m.
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BuzWeston writes:
A violation of free speech? License plates exist for the sole purpose of registration identification. There's no "right" to say anything you want via a license plate. Use the rest of your bumper to show other motorists how silly you are.
July 28, 2008
10:12 a.m.
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danirobi writes:
While in California I saw a plate that said Dr. DUI! No joke and it was parked under a drive through liquor store...
July 28, 2008
10:19 a.m.
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fmln1976 writes:
It's articles like these that remind me why I never put my journalism degree to use.
July 28, 2008
10:23 a.m.
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Steph writes:
I wanted a license plate with REDRUM on it, but they wouldn't let me have one.
July 28, 2008
10:29 a.m.
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Scott writes:
Steph,
Back in the 1980s a Nebraska pig farmer wanted "RED PIG" on his vanity plates. The breed of pigs that he raised was known as red pigs. The loser, err I mean state employee, that approved vanity plates wouldn't let him have it. It made the papers and the governor of Nebraska forced the state snivel serpent to approve the plates.
Scott
July 28, 2008
11:02 a.m.
Suggest removal
Elwood writes:
Mrchinaski,
I've got 420-chz. I wonder when they will not renew them because of this PC BS.
I wonder if NOPCBS is available?
July 28, 2008
11:05 a.m.
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R8R_H8R writes:
I read somewhere that you can't believe everything you read.
July 28, 2008
11:21 a.m.
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Dhakala writes:
Is there a Web page where people can check this list of prohibited letter combinations before they try to register them?
July 28, 2008
11:50 a.m.
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Radar writes:
DILLIGAF
July 28, 2008
12:50 p.m.
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marine76 writes:
I wish the government (and everyone else) would stop trying to protect us from ourselves. If you see a license plate or anything else for that matter, that you don't like, don't look at it. We don't need big brother deciding what is and isn't good for us.
July 28, 2008
1:50 p.m.
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rodreeguys writes:
I saw one the other day and asked myself how in the heck did THAT get approved :)
It said: WTF-LOL
July 28, 2008
2:24 p.m.
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roger44 writes:
Richard simmons had one that was YRUFAT
July 28, 2008
3:38 p.m.
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HankRearden writes:
I have alot of friends from the middle east. I can't tell if they have vanity plates or not.
July 28, 2008
3:46 p.m.
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Scott writes:
YOTIA:
I'll bet if you had posted "CRKRS SCK" the losers at RMN would have turned a blind eye to it. Remember, it's O.K. to bash the evil whiteman :-)
Scott
July 28, 2008
4:16 p.m.
Suggest removal
Scott writes:
no_s____sherlock gusted: "The cost of the review of these plates is a drop in the bucket compared to the money brought in for these plates."
A worthless a$$ snivel serpent fired here, a worthless a$$ snivel serpent fired there; pretty soon we're talking about saving some real money! (apologies to the late Senator Everett Dirksen). This discussion (revulsion?) isn't about making sure that truly offensive plates are caught, it's about some brain dead government employee wasting time, hence money, and generating frustration among working people by nixing plates that would be offensive to only the most politically correct jerk or fellow brain dead snivel serpent. Example: AMO = ammunition? Pathetic, truly pathetic.
Scott
(I never claimed greatness)
July 28, 2008
4:35 p.m.
Suggest removal
vendari01 writes:
Odd, I just saw GODSSON on a Rav 4. While I think I understand the message, I hope that it isn't an answer to the age-old question: "What would Jesus drive?"
July 28, 2008
9:46 p.m.
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gary writes:
There is a car with a plate that is good.
It is 6ULDV8
Nuff Said!
July 28, 2008
10:42 p.m.
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AC writes:
Yiota, grow up, eh?
July 28, 2008
11:33 p.m.
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Lesh writes:
About 25 years ago I saw 1FASTMF on a Corvette in Denver. I allways wondered how that one got by the censors.
July 29, 2008
2:09 p.m.
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ruiner38 writes:
YIOTA,
I'm sick of people like you making decent white folks look bad. They didn't kill and enslave us, we killed and enslaved them. We are still the majority. When we are racist, it's oppression. If minorities want to make a few jokes about us, I think they're entitled.
And remember, the "bias" you're talking about was brought about by white people. We are the majority, as I've said, we decide what's politically correct. I'm sure the people banning letter combinations are mostly white. Most white people are more comfortable hearing minorities say jokes about us than us about them.
Just because you can't deal with your own insecurities is no reason to needlessly attack others. Grow up.
July 30, 2008
9:23 a.m.
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roger44 writes:
Anyone with any imagination can make something nasty out of 3 letters. Doesn't this state have better things to do with their time? So are we going to appoint a committee to see what letters could be construed as nasty?