PennDOT issues many vanity license plates annually, but it also rejects countless applications, from the puerile to the racist, according to a staff report from City & State Pennsylvania.
Each application has to abide by a set of rules that ensure that they do not offend or confuse other drivers, or in many cases, copy them.
Motorists can choose any combination of a maximum of seven letters and/or numbers to make a plate they like and believe will stand out on busy roads.
Recently, the agency published a “Do Not Issue” list of unacceptable configurations. The list is long and unsurprisingly lewd. Last year, hundreds of thousands of personalized applications were rejected because they were misleading to police, profane, lascivious, obscene or vulgar, too similar to another plate, or had been previously issued
Other rejected submissions were related to drugs, alcohol, organized crime, or other illegal activities, among many other reasons.
Some of the examples include EVILSOB, FLA5HME, DADDYAF, and ELOH55A (which is a backwards-spelling of “a-hole”).
Read more about denied personalized license plate applications in the City & State Pennsylvania.
A new ruling allows police to pull you over if any part of your license plate is covered, even the tiny tourism website line. State Senator Scott Martin says this unfairly targets thousands of drivers and is pushing a fix so stops only apply when the plate number or registration sticker is blocked.
Editor’s Note: This post first appeared on VISTA Today in April 2023.
