How Not To Make A Personalised Number Plate

Police have a first rule for anyone thinking of knocking up home-made licence plates.

It’s simply: “Don’t”.

But for those who didn’t get the memo, they have a second suggestion.

“If you do, make sure not to use cardboard from a pizza box and magic markers.”

The pizza box registration plates had been attached to a Buick. As well as the number written in green, it also included the state abbreviation “Mass” in blue.

Police charged the “creative operator” for driving an uninsured and unregistered vehicle and attaching the “‘fake home-made’ plates”.

A Canadian man whose surname was deemed too offensive for his personalised car registration plate says it is a case of "bureaucratic hypocrisy".

Lorne Grabher argues in a recently filed affidavit that there are plenty of potentially offensive signs and place names dotted across Canada.
Those include Crotch Lake (in Ontario) and Dildo (in Newfoundland).

Mr Grabher's personalised plate was cancelled because it could be seen as a "socially unacceptable slogan".

DVLA bans 'offensive' number plates
Why do people still buy personalised number plates?
The Nova Scotia man is taking the province's motor vehicle registrar to court after a request to reinstate the plate was denied.

In the affidavit filed with Nova Scotia's Supreme Court this month, Mr Grabher also singled out recent ads placed on transit buses in the city of Halifax by municipal water services.

The slogans in those ads include the slogans "Powerful sh*t" and "Our minds are in the gutter".

The ads are not meant to offend but to raise awareness of the importance of the full water cycle, according to a Halifax Water representative.

Mr Grabher's registration plate was cancelled in January after the office of the registrar received a complaint. It had been in use for 27 years.

The office said the personalised plate with the last name "Grabher" could be misinterpreted by the public.
Mr Grabher says that his surname is of Austrian-German heritage.

The personalised plate has been used by three generations of his family, including by his son who lives in another province.

"We are proud of our surname, which tells a story about both our past and our present," he says in the affidavit.
"We are not ashamed of our immigrant background or our role in Canadian society."

Mr Grabher has said he thinks he is being punished for President Donald Trump's obscene language.

During the American election, a video surfaced of then-candidate Mr Trump saying the words "grab them by the pussy".

Nova Scotia's licence plate regulations allow the province to refuse names deemed to be offensive or in poor taste.

The province currently bans about 3,100 names.

So what are the top selling number plates in the UK? The DVLA has been selling private plates to UK motorists since 1989. During this time, there have been a number of records set, but most of the top 10 have been bought in the past 15 years. Here’s what currently makes the list:

25 0 – A Ferrari dealer bought this for £518k in 2014. It is now on a £10 million Ferrari 250 SWB.
F 1 – A businessman, Afzal Khan, bought this for £440k in 2008 and put it on his McLaren-Mercedes SLR.
S 1 – This was bought in 2008 for £404k by an anonymous buyer.
1 D – Businessman Nabil Bishara bought this plate in 2009 (before One Direction was formed, so it is not a reference to the band) for £352k.
M 1 – Businessman Mike McCoomb bought this number plate in 2006 for £331k, apparently for his son, who was 10 at the time.
VIP 1 – Chelsea owner and businessman Roman Abramovich bought this plate for £285k in 2006.
51 NGH – This number plate, which looks like the surname Singh, was sold in 2006 for £254k.
1 RH – Businessman Robert Haverson bought this in 2006 for £247k.
K1 NGS – This reg plate, which looks like the word “kings”, was bought anonymously in 1993 for £231k.
1 0 – This very simple but striking number plate was bought anonymously in 2009 for £170k.

These are large amounts of money, but they are all small compared to the top-selling number plates found in other parts of the world. Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, has the record for the most expensive number plate ever sold. That number plate was a simple “1”. It was bought in 2008 by businessman Saeed Abdul Ghaffar Khouri for £7.25 million.

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