Surname Too Offensive For Reg Plate

Reg Plates Article

Surname Too Offensive For Reg Plate

A man who used his surname on his license plate for over 25 years is furious after authorities cancelled it a single complaint said it was ‘a socially unacceptable slogan’.

Lorne Grabher, from Canada, has had the license plate GRABHER on his car for over 25 years, after purchasing the custom plate for his father’s 65th birthday. Lorne’s dad died in the 1990s, and he has used the plate ever since.

Speaking to CBC, Lorne says he can’t believe his own name was targeted.

‘Where does the province of Nova Scotia and the government of Nova Scotia get the right to discriminate against a person's name?’ he asks.

An email sent to CBC by the Department of Transportation explained that some people might interpret the plate in a way that promotes violence against women.

‘With no way to denote that it is a family name on the plate, the department determined it was in the public's best interest to remove it from circulation,’ it reads.

The particular phrase “grab her” is thought to be particularly tasteless considering the statements recorded by US President Donald Trump in relation to women.

But Lorne says it shouldn’t matter.

‘Donald Trump is a totally different person. He's ignorant. He doesn't care about anybody and I shouldn't be put in a class like him,’ he said.

‘I’ve never once had anybody come up to me and say they were offended.’

How close a series of letters or numbers are to a real name of word: if the match quality is high (and the numbers and letters are very convincing in making a popular word), the value of the registration plate will be higher. This means that a match like 5IMON, for the name Simon, will be worth a lot more than a more obscure set of letters and numbers that are not as convincing a match, such as S17 MMM for the name Sam.

The style of the plate: this means establishing if it is a new-style plate, an older-style format or if it is dateless or Irish, for instance. Other options are that it is a prefix-style plate or a suffix-style plate. New-style number plates, which have been produced since 2001, tend to be the least valuable because they are a bit less appealing to some collectors, plus the rule about not having plates that are newer than your car can also come into play, putting people off from buying a newer-style plate for their older car. Prefix-style number plates, which were in production between 1983 and 2001 can be more popular as more vehicles are entitled to have those licence numbers, and they may have fewer characters in total. Suffix-style plates, issued from 1963 to 1983 are relatively rare, which means they can attract higher prices than prefix-style plates and newer designs. Dateless number plates, also known as cherished number plates, were produced between 1903 and 1963 and are nearly always the most valuable number plate configurations; they have fewer digits and their dateless nature means that people can hide the age of their car. Irish number plates are similar to dateless number plates, especially because they don’t have a year identifier. They also tend to be cheaper than other types of vehicle registration plates.

number plates reg transfers