Overhunting can cause a shortage due to their low reproduction rate.
I saw one that said “MENGELE” a while back. I reported it but don’t know if any action was taken.
More recently, I saw one that said “MMCXII.” Yeah, I got it too.
One can only hope.
One thousand people move to my state permanently per day. Migration swamps reproduction.
Could it have been owned by someone with that surname? The Nazi doctor wasn’t the only Mengele, nor even the only famous Mengele. (There’s also, for example, the inventor Benno Mengele the artist Friedrich Mengele.) I know a lot of jurisdictions generally prohibit any word, name, number, or abbreviation with an offensive meaning, but will make exceptions if the registrant can demonstrate that it’s used innocently. For example, California has a rule against the number 69 on vanity plates, but makes an exception for 1969-model vehicles.
I couldn’t read it on my laptop. Ancient eyes.
On a black SUV here in Phoenix: AZ OVEN
On our Honda Civic: SALUQI
That argument didn’t work for Mr Grabher in Nova Scotia:
VW Jetta: RETURN
Pink Jeep with “girly” accoutrments: RUB1OUT
Vehicle not relevant: PHO CUE (say it out loud, pronouncing “PHO” correctly)
On a Virginia “Horse” plate: LIKE A (presumably “hung” is implied?)
Two old stories about California tags, both likely apocryphal:
- Guy got SEXISOK, then DMV pulled it. He wrote the governor asking if it was official state policy that sex was NOT OK. He got his tag back.
- Guy got NO TAG, thinking it would get him out of parking tickets. Instead the reverse happened: every time a car got written up that had no tags, HE got the ticket. I really don’t believe this one, but I like it anyway.
Those “clever” 1001010-type tags strike me as baiting the cops, unlikely to have a positive result…
I’m surprised you didn’t cite this (for you) more local example:
Snopes say it’s true. Though inadvertent.
I’ve never had the desire to personalize my license plates. Besides, if I ever rob a bank, I don’t want my get-away car to have a plate that reads, “JASMINE” LOL
Same thing (and it’s true) happened to the clever guy who got ‘NULL’ on his plate. Every time a cop would forget to write down the plate number on a ticket, the system flagged it as null, and the fines were sent his way.
Hah! I shoulda checked. Still fun!
Four or five years ago, I saw a BORT license plate. It is a reference to a Simpsons episode where Bart couldn’t find a kids’ souvenir license plate with his name on it at a gift shop, but he saw plenty of BORT license plates. @AlsoNamedBort gets his/her user name from that episode.
I’d forgotten!
Quite a few years ago I saw some little sports car with a middle age couple driving it. Plate read MTNEST
Some years ago in an article about the California DMV and the lengths it goes to, to keep suggestive plates off of autos, somebody tried FORNIC8.
“But it’s for my brother Nick and he owns a V-8!”
“Yeah, when he gets a straight-6 you can get him a plate.”
In another article written for paranoid people who worry about being targeted for a carjacking, the writer advised against personal plates for this very reason.
Likely a Sovereign Citizen type tried that.
Note: not a personalized combo, but one which I’ll mention anyway. When I worked for the Florida tag agency 30+ years ago, they had allowed the LSD combo to be used on regular plates. No idea why, of all the combos that they had disallowed, that that one was allowed to slip through.
Based on how often I kept seeing them since then, apparently the FLDMV never bothered to ban it.
My neighbors 1970 Corvette has a license plate 4U2NV and a 427 under the hood. I must say I’d love to its the owner !
Years ago in south Florida, I saw a little sports car driven by a young woman with the plate “I CRASH”. I kept a fair distance away from her.
Once saw California plates that said NO PRNDL. It’s been a while and I don’t remember the make or model, but I do know what kind of transmission it had.