DLVA 67 Number Plates That Have Been Withheld From Sale

New ’67’ number plates will come into circulation from today, September 1st 2017.

Every six months new number plates are introduced into circulation with them used to give the car a unique identity and show its age.

But hundreds of new number plate combinations have been banned from entering circulation next week ahead of their release after being deemed inappropriate or offensive.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) has banned approximately 300 new number plate combinations to avoid offence.

Any plate ending in ARS or DAM have been named as have NO67 FUN, NO67 END, MU67 GED, DO67 ERR, BA67 TRD and ST67 BBD.

A spokeswoman told AutoExpress that: “There’s nothing scientific about it. It’s all done by taste and if some slip through the net and we get a complaint, we take the feedback on board.”

However, in June the number plate JH11 HAD was spotted in Newport, South Wales, and reported to authorities and subsequently removed from the roads.

Following this discovers a FOI request by BBC Wales revealed that JE** HAD and *J11 HAD were also banned.

A letter by the DVLA stated that: "Such numbers are withheld if they are likely to cause offence or embarrassment to the general population in this country on the grounds of political, racial and religious sensitivities or simply because they are in poor taste when displayed correctly on a number plate."

Other banned combinations of letters include:

Four-letter combinations: *B** UMS, *G** ODS and *R** APE

Five-letter combinations: AB** USE, AN** GER and BO** SOM

2004 vehicle registrations: A**4 RSE, BO04 ZZY and BL04 JOB

2011 vehicle registrations: BO11 OC*, DR11 GG* and PO11 CE*

Dateless number plates
At the start of the 1900s, there was an increase in the number of moving vehicles, causing more accidents to happen. This led to the creation of the 1903 Motor Car Act, which extended to motorbikes as well. It became a requirement for every vehicle to be registered with a number plate.

Although it’s widely claimed A1 was the first mark to be issued in the UK, DY1 was issued in Kent on the 23rd November 1903. The person to register for A1 was Frank Russell, grandson of prime minister John Russell. Determined to claim the mark, Russell camped outside the council offices all night so he could get it. This is one of the earliest examples of getting a personalised plate for a vehicle.

Early on, a number plate featured a local council identifier code of up to three letters and three random numbers e.g. BCD 234. The first plates lacked any date, so there wasn’t any way of telling the year a motorbike was issued. Surprisingly, this system stayed in place until the 1960s.

Suffix number plates
In 1963, a lot of local councils had run out of registrations, even after adding extra digits and reversing them. This led to the introduction of the Suffix system, and a letter indicating the registration year was added to the end of a plate.

Since 1903, police checks on vehicle records had been time consuming. Everything had to be done manually, which meant the system needed to be revamped. In 1974, the centralised DVLA system was created, meaning local councils weren’t responsible for vehicle registration anymore.

Prefix system
When the Prefix system was introduced in 1983, the letter indicating the year of registration moved to the beginning of the plate.

Here’s a breakdown of what each part of a prefix plate means:

The first letter represents the year a motorbike was registered and put on the road. A stands for 1983, B for 1984 and so on. The last two letters represent the area code where the plate was registered. The remaining numbers and letters don’t have any specific meaning. They simply provide variation.

Current system
The current system was put in place in 2001. A standard plate features the local region, date and random letters. Based on police evidence, witnesses are more likely to remember letters than numbers, and as people read from left to right, it made sense to put the local region at the beginning of a plate.

Under the current system, the date of registration for a vehicle changes in March and September. The system began with 51 to represent the six months from September 2001 and 02 replaced it in March 2002. 52 represents September 2002, 03 represents 2003 and it carried on all the way to 67 for 2017.