NEWS

DNTEVNTRY

Brian Amaral
bamaral@providencejournal.com

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Vanity license plates allow Rhode Islanders to express their personalities and individuality right on their bumpers, but in dozens of cases over the past few years, the state has said no.

No, you cannot have “PPLSUC” on your license plate in Rhode Island. You cannot have “BAASTD” on your license plate. Nor can you ride around with a license plate that says “RIDEME.”

Fifty times since 2012, according to state data, the Division of Motor Vehicles has had to reject license plate applications that veered off the road of decency.

“Rhode Islanders pride themselves on their individuality and their creativity — attributes that make this state a great place to live,” DMV Administrator Walter R. “Bud” Craddock, whose responsibility it is to decide the rules of the road for vanity plates, said in an email. “Many Rhode Islanders show that in the registrations they choose. The Division of Motor Vehicles has a duty to ensure that, when it comes to registrations, their creativity stays within the bounds of good taste and the guidelines accepted by other states around the country.”

Those 45 rejected letter and number combinations — five of them were requested twice — made it through the first taste filter: The state keeps a list of combinations that are automatically rejected when you try to put them into the online plate-application system.

The list of automatically-banned letter and word combinations includes some 1,358 terms, from AK47 to YOKEL. You cannot have a license plate in Rhode Island that says “LMAO.” Even if you are a “SADIST” your license plate cannot reflect it. New items are added to the list as Rhode Islanders try to pull a fast one on the DMV. The DMV rejects certain words that are vulgar or otherwise inappropriate in other languages, too.

In the cases of the 45 different letter and number combinations that were rejected since 2012, those were the ones that got past the initial screening system. Somewhere else down the line, someone else, like the plate-room supervisor, realized the plate shouldn’t be produced.

The DMV administrator, according to Rhode Island laws, has the discretion to refuse any vanity plate that “might carry connotations offensive to good taste and decency,” according to state law. The standards of “good taste and decency” are up to the administrator.

Some clearly reach over the line, and cannot be printed in a family newspaper. There are apparent drug references, like REEFR and BONG. Others are acronyms for vulgar sayings, or profanities spelled backwards, part of a cat-and-mouse game of bad taste.

As language evolves, more words with different and changing connotations have been added to the reject list, like a certain letter combination that refers to exasperation about one’s circumstances and had to be rejected after it got past the first screening process. Similarly, the New York City’s transit authority likewise had to change its signs when the F, M and L lines all came together in the same place.

But no jibes about New Yorkers. NYSKS is not allowed on Rhode Island license plates. Someone in the last few years tried.

DMV officials couldn’t recall anyone challenging the rejection on free speech grounds. And anytime an application is rejected, the agency refunds the fees.

A partial list of vanity plate applications rejected — some more than once — by the Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles since 2012. (The full list of 45 included several that were plainly unprintable.)

BAASTD

BADAZ

BBICH

BEGBTY

BNZOUR

BONG

FATAS

FATAZ

FML13

FOAD

FOGHAT

GOTBCH

GRNHRN

GTFO

HCTIB

HOOKAH

IDFWU

NYSKS

ONRYSX

ORGSM

PERRA

PPLSUC

REDNCK

REEFR

RIDEME

SMOKU