> This data was parsed from a set of 458 Excel workbooks that the DMV prepared for someone else's public records request. I received the files as a consolation prize in response to my own related records request, which I was told would cost $2,000 to fulfill otherwise.
That's very interesting. It implies that there seemingly is no central place in CA where this data is stored, otherwise there would be 1 source and 1 format.
Then again, last time I went to the DMV in CA I filled out paperwork online, only for them to print it and then manually process it. And this was 2.5 years ago.
Not California, but recently I had "SIXSPD" denied by a state after putting the first known 6-speed manual (all were sold as dual-clutch automatics) in an enthusiast car.
I was told that abbreviations weren't allowed. That was the denial reason.
Resubmitted it, not denied yet. We'll see if it shows up in another 3-5 weeks or if I get a denial letter followed by an another application refund 4-6 weeks after that.
Like the other commenter mentioned, PD can often be interpreted as Police Department but also "speed" interpretations can be marked as drug references. Tough spot, best of luck!
I must commend CA DMV for their wise leverage of UrbanDictionary.com, which is cited over 170 times in that file.
And I must wonder about how reliable they consider UD to be, given that UD is 100% user-generated content. Is it possible to tank a perfectly innocent license plate if someone gins up a misleading UD entry?
Licence plates are a great example where detection "algorithms" be overzealous in returning false positives over false negatives. As someone had above, if they reject SIXSPD and won't allow it, then just try something else. If your life is materially impacted by by a licence plate, it's 'long hard look' time.
(I was going to make a specificity/selectively comment but I don't think that applies here, please correct me otherwise?)
Reminds me of a bot, formerly of Twitter and now on Bluesky, that lists custom Oregon plates as they're registered or expired and made available: https://bsky.app/profile/plat.es
Some of these are ridiculous. QVO ESE was denied because there's a gang that starts with the letter S. "Que hubo ese?" in Spanish is like saying "What's up dude?", it's not even as gang related as "What's up g?".
One of the comments on a gay related ones contained the note "my instructions are to run any gay or lesbian plate by the review board, but as long as its positive it is acceptable". Sounds like more work to deal with those ones, even if it seems alright, which could contribute to the denials.
That row has a "Y" in the last column so it was actually granted after the extra review. Most entries in the csv were rejected, but a few like this one were eventually allowed it looks like.
Talk about power tripping bureaucrats. Just glancing at a few:
> H84BY4Z,7,"I HATE 4X4 VEHICLES. SATIRE, AS I WILL BE PUTTING THIS PLATE ON A 4 WHEEL DRIVE TRUCK",HATE,N
> SAABNUT,1,CRAZZY ABOUT SAAB BRAND CARS,SAAB NUT.. SAAB IS A CAR NUT CAN BE SEXUAL OR CAN MEAN CRAZY,N
> PZA TACO,1,MY TWO FAVORITE THINGS PIZZA AND TACOS,TACO,N
> AIRS$FT,2,AIRSOFT SPORT WE LOVE,AIRSOFT SHOOTING,N
> 3&14 PI,4,THE FIRST 3 DIGITS OF PI,PIE 14 GANG REFERENCE,N
> CHRG4PS,1,CHARGE FOR PEACE,LOOKS LIKE CHARGE FOR PS… NOT SURE WHAT PS MEANS,N
> PINK 64,1,THE CAR IS A 1964 VW BUG,PINK=VAGINA. HAS A 64 VW ON ANI,N
> KIKI$77,1,NAME AND SOFTBALL NUMBER,"kiki=Tagalog, means vagina",N
> MFC,3,"'MFC' IS AN ABBREVIATION FOR 'MOTHERWELL FOOTBALL CLUB' A PREMIERE LEAGUE SOCCER TEAM LOCATED IN MY HOMETOWN OF MOTHERWELL, SCOTLAND.",MFC motherfuck? Motherwell IS a Scottish Football Club,N
> CAT TAX,1,"I WANT A LICENSE PLATE WITH ""CAT"" ON IT, AND I FIGURED A CUSTOM PLATE CAUSES ME TO PAY MORE IN TAXES... SO I AM PAYING THE CAT TAX.",CAT TAX CAT SLANG FOR VAGINA,N
Do any of those rejections seem reasonable to anyone else? They all seem insane to me.
I've seen many rejections for "HATE", any word that could be considered a sexual euphemism (TACO), anything that could be construed as a gang reference, and often anything that the reviewer doesn't understand that is not explained by the submission ("NOT SURE WHAT PS MEANS"). The latter feels paranoid, but it's probably justified.
For those who like doomscrolling, there's a twitter bot for this: https://x.com/ca_dmv_bot2. Seems like 88 is automatically denied because of Hitler, not sure what they do about people born in that year.
>
DAVES88,2,DAVES 1988 TOYOTA,88 HITLER REFRENCE,N
Don't get me wrong, I know some weird parts of the internet use 88 that way.
But c'mon, this is pretty weak, I'd venture 95% of people (if not more) don't even know that reference. Is everyone born in 1988 prevented from using their birth year these days, too?
I think they're likely being very conservative about what they issue, lest someone see the plate, be offended from misunderstanding it, and then get people riled up about how the state is supporting hate or obscenities.
Possibly a coincidence, but with Musk's politics, it seems, at least as likely, this may be a recent, intentional, example of 88 as Heil Hitler (August 8 = 8/8):
Haha, good one. So in California you can say whatever neonazi shizz you like and buy Hitler's books because of the 1st ammendent but you can't have an 88 on your state issued vanity license plate (what about randomly issued ones?) But in Germany where all that is forbidden by law you have the short form of the hitler salute on a whole city's plates. Looks like no one died from those in German so can we just reinstate the 1st on license plates California and save a few millions in review costs? It's not like things were fast at the DMV anyways..
Most of the time it means that they are putting the plate on a 1988 vehicle or that they were born in 1988. But it's being denied because H is the 8th letter of the alphabet, and thus 88 might be construed as HH, which might be construed as Heil Hitler: https://www.adl.org/resources/hate-symbol/88. In some rare cases it might even be intended to have this meaning.
I filed for "YUUUGE" in the Trump era for my mini cooper, saying it was ironic, referencing the cooper's small size and it got denied it for inappropriate sexual reference.
My friend, Big Dave, is at least 6'6" and a body builder in addition to being a computer operator. He applied for GR8BIGD, and was denied; but got it on appeal because he's actually great big d(ave).
I've had my mini since 2023, license plate MINIKIN, which is a real word meaning something small and precious and dainty. Fits it perfectly. There is a twin in TX that a friend saw, albeit of a different color.
Uncomfortable with K1LLJ3W & don’t (deeply) need to see GOATSE in the neighbor’s driveway every morning.
Driving’s a privilege they tell us, makes sense they’d restrict plates based on sensibilities of the average taxpayer.
Meanwhile offensive, say, t-shirts might be seen on the sidewalk but perhaps not in around your usual hangouts as a boring, easily offended person (I kid!)
(Not married to these opinions, LMK of any obvious misses here)
> Uncomfortable with K1LLJ3W & don’t (deeply) need to see GOATSE in the neighbor’s driveway every morning
Counterpoint: I’d give zero shits about their noise complaints or parking preferences going forward, and I suspect my town’s police would be fine with that.
I feel like if you try and file a police report because your car with one of those plates got vandalized, they'd take their sweet time trying to follow up on it... just saying :)
The reasons given for other rejections are so stupid and far-fetched. Fourteen and eighty eight are Hitler related? Even if true, less than 0.1% of all Americans would recognize such a reference.
I usually appreciate objectivity, but in human processes it rarely works. There are always edge cases. Write down all the rules for number plates and someone will find a way to write an offensive one, or language will change and the policy won't have caught up. You need human subjectivity in the loop as a check.
This is where "smart" contracts fell down, the pitch was having truly objective and automated contracts, which were supposed to be better than legal contracts because of those properties. But what we actually got was contracts where finding a loophole meant you could screw over the other party and be contractually guaranteed to get away with it. The real benefit of a legal contract is being able to go to court and litigate it and theoretically come out with a fair result. That's not always possible, but it is much more likely than with "smart" contracts.
> Write down all the rules for number plates and someone will find a way to write an offensive one, or language will change and the policy won't have caught up. You need human subjectivity in the loop as a check.
That's not what I meant with subjectivity. I want objective rules, like "license place should be 6 alphanumeric letters".
as soon as you say "it shouldn't be offensive to the average citizen", you're in the subjectivity realm.
Ok, but you'd agree that we shouldn't allow, say, an offensive word for a specific race to be used right? Because that would be actively harmful to many people.
So we make a rule saying "you can't use word X". So someone submits a plate that is X but... with a number replacing a letter. It's not against the rules, but it's still actively harmful because a human subjectively reads it as the banned word. So you expand the rule, but then language changes, etc etc. Surely you need to have a subjective judgement process because the interpretation/harm is subjective?
I'll grant you that finding the right balance here, or where the line is, is a hard problem. This list to me however shows that it can be achieved in a reasonable way.
Alternatively if you think that people should be allowed to use widely recognised, highly derogatory words for other people as number plates, that rules like being 6 characters is strictly sufficient, then I think we disagree too much to resolve.
I prefer taxes on purchases whose main use is status competition (e.g., a yacht, a dress or a pair of shoes that costs more than $1000) over other kinds of taxes, and I suspect that vanity license plates are mainly purchased for their effects on status (and a full 100% of the purchase price goes to the taxing authority, which is nice).
You can write anything you like on your car. You can't force the state to endorse any identification you'd like for it. Seems like a pretty clear line.
That's very interesting. It implies that there seemingly is no central place in CA where this data is stored, otherwise there would be 1 source and 1 format.
Then again, last time I went to the DMV in CA I filled out paperwork online, only for them to print it and then manually process it. And this was 2.5 years ago.
I was told that abbreviations weren't allowed. That was the denial reason.
Resubmitted it, not denied yet. We'll see if it shows up in another 3-5 weeks or if I get a denial letter followed by an another application refund 4-6 weeks after that.
How did they figure that one. If that's what it's supposed to mean, that reviewer is good...
And I must wonder about how reliable they consider UD to be, given that UD is 100% user-generated content. Is it possible to tank a perfectly innocent license plate if someone gins up a misleading UD entry?
Signed,
Don Palabros
(I was going to make a specificity/selectively comment but I don't think that applies here, please correct me otherwise?)
Note: I normalized the data a bit and I think I translated some of the abbreviations and reasons for rejection. It also got reordered at some point.
Yes, Sevak is servant and the number 13 in Punjabi is "tera" which also means "yours".
Unfortunately in California the number 13 is a GANG REFERENCE. lol. Probably a free-speech argument to be made here?
Proctologists everywhere mourn the lost opportunity
Luckily there are many ways to abbreviate “hemorrhoid” without running afoul of the censors.
(IANAL)
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism
GASSMAN, "I'M AN ANESTHESIOLOGIST"
Most of them are sex jokes or racist so fair enough, but the rejections seem way too sensitive for the others.
> TUNA FSH
> I'M A PROFESSIONAL FISHERMAN AND I FISH FOR TUNA ALL OVER THE WORLD
> DMV: I GOOGLED HIM, HE IS AND HE DOES
> DENIED
> BJS4DDS,1,MY INITIALS AND MY WIFE INITIALS,BLOW JOBS FOR DENTAL WORK… CUSTOMER IS BRIAN J SAMUELS,N
, where all the letters are representable using ASCII (B is pronounced V in Russian)
> H84BY4Z,7,"I HATE 4X4 VEHICLES. SATIRE, AS I WILL BE PUTTING THIS PLATE ON A 4 WHEEL DRIVE TRUCK",HATE,N
> SAABNUT,1,CRAZZY ABOUT SAAB BRAND CARS,SAAB NUT.. SAAB IS A CAR NUT CAN BE SEXUAL OR CAN MEAN CRAZY,N
> PZA TACO,1,MY TWO FAVORITE THINGS PIZZA AND TACOS,TACO,N
> AIRS$FT,2,AIRSOFT SPORT WE LOVE,AIRSOFT SHOOTING,N
> 3&14 PI,4,THE FIRST 3 DIGITS OF PI,PIE 14 GANG REFERENCE,N
> CHRG4PS,1,CHARGE FOR PEACE,LOOKS LIKE CHARGE FOR PS… NOT SURE WHAT PS MEANS,N
> PINK 64,1,THE CAR IS A 1964 VW BUG,PINK=VAGINA. HAS A 64 VW ON ANI,N
> KIKI$77,1,NAME AND SOFTBALL NUMBER,"kiki=Tagalog, means vagina",N
> MFC,3,"'MFC' IS AN ABBREVIATION FOR 'MOTHERWELL FOOTBALL CLUB' A PREMIERE LEAGUE SOCCER TEAM LOCATED IN MY HOMETOWN OF MOTHERWELL, SCOTLAND.",MFC motherfuck? Motherwell IS a Scottish Football Club,N
> CAT TAX,1,"I WANT A LICENSE PLATE WITH ""CAT"" ON IT, AND I FIGURED A CUSTOM PLATE CAUSES ME TO PAY MORE IN TAXES... SO I AM PAYING THE CAT TAX.",CAT TAX CAT SLANG FOR VAGINA,N
Do any of those rejections seem reasonable to anyone else? They all seem insane to me.
I've seen many rejections for "HATE", any word that could be considered a sexual euphemism (TACO), anything that could be construed as a gang reference, and often anything that the reviewer doesn't understand that is not explained by the submission ("NOT SURE WHAT PS MEANS"). The latter feels paranoid, but it's probably justified.
13 GANG REFERENCE
14 = GANG NUMBER
PULLED FOR 69
Don't get me wrong, I know some weird parts of the internet use 88 that way.
But c'mon, this is pretty weak, I'd venture 95% of people (if not more) don't even know that reference. Is everyone born in 1988 prevented from using their birth year these days, too?
Yes, they are:
> BLK88BZ,2,NICKNAME AND BIRTH YEAR,88-HITLER. BIRTH YEAR VERIFIED AS '88,N
> 28GSV88,2,IMPORTANT DATE.,"88=HATE SYMBOL, NO 88 CAR ON ANI. 28 IS BIRTHDATE AND 1988 IS YEAR",N
> AMK 88,2,INITIALS AND YEAR OF BIRTH,"88=hate symbol, no 88 car. was born in 88",N
> 88DURAN,2,YEAR OF MY BIRTH AND LAST NAME.,88-HITLER. BIRTH YEAR CONFIRMED AS 1988,N
> 6TTT88,2,BIRTHDAY AND INITIALS,88-HITLER. BIRTH YEAR CONFIRMED AS 1988,N
> 88 MAR,7,MY BIRTH YEAR AND MONTH,88-HITLER. BIRTH MONTH AND YEAR CONFIRMED.,N
> 88HENRY,7,YEAR OF BIRTH AND LAST NAME,88-HITLER. BIRTH YEAR CONFIRMED,N
In case it's not clear, in all of the above applications, the DMV confirmed the person was really born in 1988 and denied the plate anyway.
It feels like they would, but maybe I'm wrong. But it would be hilarious if they did.
American auto in production whole last half of 20th Century:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldsmobile_88
Wehrmacht 88mm tank artillery round:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanks_in_the_German_Army
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_(number)#In_neo-Nazism
Possibly a coincidence, but with Musk's politics, it seems, at least as likely, this may be a recent, intentional, example of 88 as Heil Hitler (August 8 = 8/8):
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/05/business/elon-musk-tesla-robo...
From experience moderating large Internet communities, I'd say that is much less rare than I wish it was.
in general, I'm all for removing subjectivity.
Driving’s a privilege they tell us, makes sense they’d restrict plates based on sensibilities of the average taxpayer.
Meanwhile offensive, say, t-shirts might be seen on the sidewalk but perhaps not in around your usual hangouts as a boring, easily offended person (I kid!)
(Not married to these opinions, LMK of any obvious misses here)
Counterpoint: I’d give zero shits about their noise complaints or parking preferences going forward, and I suspect my town’s police would be fine with that.
Others are rejected for AREA CODE reason? WTF?
This is extreme government overreach.
I usually appreciate objectivity, but in human processes it rarely works. There are always edge cases. Write down all the rules for number plates and someone will find a way to write an offensive one, or language will change and the policy won't have caught up. You need human subjectivity in the loop as a check.
This is where "smart" contracts fell down, the pitch was having truly objective and automated contracts, which were supposed to be better than legal contracts because of those properties. But what we actually got was contracts where finding a loophole meant you could screw over the other party and be contractually guaranteed to get away with it. The real benefit of a legal contract is being able to go to court and litigate it and theoretically come out with a fair result. That's not always possible, but it is much more likely than with "smart" contracts.
That's not what I meant with subjectivity. I want objective rules, like "license place should be 6 alphanumeric letters".
as soon as you say "it shouldn't be offensive to the average citizen", you're in the subjectivity realm.
So we make a rule saying "you can't use word X". So someone submits a plate that is X but... with a number replacing a letter. It's not against the rules, but it's still actively harmful because a human subjectively reads it as the banned word. So you expand the rule, but then language changes, etc etc. Surely you need to have a subjective judgement process because the interpretation/harm is subjective?
I'll grant you that finding the right balance here, or where the line is, is a hard problem. This list to me however shows that it can be achieved in a reasonable way.
Alternatively if you think that people should be allowed to use widely recognised, highly derogatory words for other people as number plates, that rules like being 6 characters is strictly sufficient, then I think we disagree too much to resolve.
Then again, this is California...
For example in US, Adolf Hitler and Jesus Christ are banned names.