Politicians worry that license plates with offensive words or ideas would be seen as government endorsement of those sayings. The truth is: those words say everything about the person who buys the vanity license plate.
Governments don’t supervise bumper stickers or license plate holders, nor should they. The same should hold for license plates.
If people want to decorate their car with a vanity license plate that others don’t like, that should be their choice. Of course, they will face societal judgment and scrutiny for their decision.
This issue often becomes news when someone’s vanity license plate is recalled.
In May, the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles demanded that a man send back his license plate, saying it violated state rules against plates that are profane, obscene or vulgar. His license plate reads “FTRU MPK.”
He admits he does not like President Trump, but says his plate is a play on “flunk Trump,” not the popular curse word that starts with F, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.
Virginia should let people have whatever they want on a license plate, but raise the price of such a luxury. Virginia currently charges just $10 a year for personalized plates, plus a one-time plate fee of $10. That’s way too low for the extravagance. They could even auction off the more popular words to the highest bidder.
Related articles:
22 Vanity Plates That Will Make You Shake Your Head (HuffPost; Feb. 19, 2014)
State governments should cash in on vanity license plates, not censor them (Tech-media-tainment; Jan. 16, 2011)
Photo: “FTRU MPK” license plate. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
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