It’s easy to forget the importance of registration plates . You literally need one on each end or you can’t drive it on the roads. They are powerful strips of metal. The police use these things to check a car isn’t stolen for example.
Due to this importance it makes sense that certain people would buy custom ones. But in the cute nicknames and ones that can cost £750,000, there are more unsavoury plates. The DVLA occasionally releases lists of banned plates. Most recently it was banned “68” plates. However what gets banned and why?
What has been banned?
The why is rather obvious, offensive language is the usual reason. This means that you can’t adorn your vehicle with wear words no matter how clever you get with the numbers. Essentially it’s the same joke we all did in school by writing “58008” on a calculator and putting it upside down.
It’s not just rude jokes that get banned but also stuff that can be potentially sensitive. Stuff like “JE5 US”, “15 LAM” and the like got banned for maybe offending someone. Also, being a blatant criminal is usually not allowed. If you had any ideas of having a ‘cool’ plate like “JA11 BRD”, you’re out of luck.
Do registration plates ever come back?
They don’t really ever come back; this is for a simple reason. If it’s offensive now it is most likely going to be offensive when the next person wants it. However just the fact that the DVLA ban some plates doesn’t mean there aren’t many to choose from. In fact the DVLA auction off registration plates out of the 50 million combinations. It does good business to; around £160 million comes in a year from these.
If you want to have a look at the list of banned plates, here’s one from 2015. However if you wish to do some research yourself you can search around on the DVLA site here.