Vanity license plate requests keep state busy adding no-nos

Within the past month the Motor Vehicle Division of the Arizona Department of Transportation sent out letters recalling about five plates with those numbers after someone pointed out they are code numbers that refer to white supremacy.

They are the latest examples of what raises the eyebrows of the state committee that meets once a month to review questionable applications for personalized license plates.

"After all these years it still never fails to surprise me what people really do ask for," said Cydney DeModica, a division spokeswoman and member of the panel.

"What is really amusing is the applicants think that we'll approve that."

The owner of a 2000 Toyota may have had a beef with the Internal Revenue Service when he requested a seven-letter plate that began with F and ended with IRS. But as the applicant explained on his request form: "It is the initials of everyone in my family oldest to youngest."

The 2002 Titan driver who asked for CRIPS — the name of a violent street gang — explained that it stood for "crippled old men."

More often people seek tags that refer to alcohol, even though state guidelines specifically forbid references to intoxicants.

"We've had so many applicants for MERLOT or WINO or, let me think, BUD. That's a very popular one. Almost every month we get that. Or 6-PACK," DeModica said.

Another common request: PSSTOFF or just PSSST.

"There must be a whole lot of drivers out there who are just driving on the edge," DeModica said. "That is a consistent application that we keep turning down."

About 214,500 of Arizona's 6.6 million tags are vanity plates. For a fee the applicant selects up to seven letters or numbers, subject to final approval by the state.

State law bans any combination of letters or numbers that are misleading or "that carries connotations that are offensive to good taste and decency."

The first level of screening is a computerized check of the request against a list of plates the state has rejected. Then division staffers review applications and kill any obvious rejects. They refer any "questionable" ones to the panel of six or seven representatives from the departments of transportation, public safety and corrections, where the plates are made by prison inmates.

At its most recent meeting, in November, the committee reviewed more than 50 applications.

Officials said they could not identify the most frequently requested plates because the state does not track requests except to add rejects to the screening list.

Arizona State University graduate Scott Spencer said his plate — UAH8R — was a good-natured jibe at the University of Arizona, his school's longtime rival. He used it for three years until someone complained and the state recalled it.

"I couldn't believe somebody would actually take the time to file a complaint against something I saw as humorous. It wasn't over the top," Spencer said.

He used the state's database of plates to show that many similar messages had been approved. He argued that most people did not find them offensive and that the state guidelines did not specifically ban such plates. The panel rejected his appeal.

"To this day I still think the whole thing was just really petty," Spencer said this week. "You're dealing with a government bureaucracy, and there is just no common sense."

Since that issue arose about two years ago, the state has stopped issuing HATE or H8 messages about the two schools, DeModica said, although the panel is aware of the history of good-natured rivalry.

"But that was before road rage" and changes in culture and attitude, she said. "And we have had to change with the times."

Likewise, combinations of the numbers 14 and 88 were approved for years until someone complained about plate 1488, DeModica said. The recall letters went out after panelists verified the coded references on white-supremacy Web sites.

The explosion of text-messaging and creative abbreviations has begun to show up as a trend in license plates, too, she said, making it harder than ever to weed out hidden messages.

see for yourself

To see what Arizona personalized plates are available and to see what others have requested:

• https://servicearizona. com/webapp/vehicle/ plates/start.do