The Taste Police Are Killing the UK's Rude Number Plates

Brits desperate to show off their puerile sense of humour or offend their straight-laced neighbours are going to have to find some other way to do it than through their oh-so-creative personalised license plates.

According to a report in The Telegraph, the UK’s Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has drawn up a list of number plates that will be banned as of next March, when the “14-plate” will be available for people to use in personalised plates. Since 2001 in the UK, the third and fourth digits on a license plate indicate how old the car is, with numbers changing every six months—and officials noticed that the upcoming combination lent itself to spelling out various inappropriate words.

Most of the censored plates use the “1” and “4” as an “I” or “A” to spell out such witty words as “SH14 TTY,” “SL14 AGS,” and “SK14 NKY.” The DVLA clearly decided that genre of playground insult just wasn’t suitable on the British roads.

In some cases, the banned phrases were more political in nature, with combinations including “AL14 LAH,” “J14 HAD,” and “TR14 DDS” also censored. While not swear words, you can imagine how those kind of controversial plates might be a little distracting for drivers.

A DVLA spokesperson explained the process: “We try to identify combinations that may cause offence and, having considered the appropriateness of these registration numbers, we have withdrawn them as they could cause offence or embarrassment on the grounds of political or racial sensitivities or are in poor taste.”

As well as looking at the upcoming 14-plates, the organisation reconsidered some variations on 63-plates, which have been available since September. In those cases, “6” and “3” could be used as “G” and “E” respectively, to come up with such imaginative results as “OR63 ASM” and “HU63 NOB.” Classy. To show they’re totally down with the kids, they also removed some plates that made use of text abbreviations, such as “OM63 WTF.”

The offending plates have been withheld, and won’t be sold—though there’s surely some irony in the fact that the authority that dishes out personalised plates has any say when it comes to taste.