The new 2018 DVLA number plates have been released.
New ’18’ plates went active on March 1st 2018.
Thur plated mark the age of cars manufactured between March 1st and August 31st 2018.
Ahead of the launch the DVLA blacklisted hundreds of plates that were deemed to be offensive or contain inappropriate language.
Things that could be misconstrued as swearwords, racial slurs, sex acts or be generally offensive terms were suppressed.
Every year a list of phrases are immediately banned including the words ‘SEX’ and ’ASS’.
Four and five letter combinations will also be banned including things like B** UMS, FA** RTY and CR** APS
Specific plates omitted from circulation in 2018 include ‘BO18 CKS’ for obvious reasons while less offensive terms such as RO18 BER were also omitted.
A DVLA spokesman said: “The vast majority of registration numbers are made available but the Agency holds back any combinations that may cause offence, embarrassment or are in poor taste.
“Many people enjoy displaying a personalised registration number and there are over 50 million registrations available on our website, www.dvlaregistrations.direct.gov.uk with almost endless possibilities of combinations to suit a person’s taste, interests and budget with prices starting at just £250.”
Some plates occasionally make is into circulation such as an example form 2017 when the plate JH11 HAD was spotted in South Wales.
The plate was later removed.
In addition to offensive plates being removed, certain ones that are believed to be sought after and therefore be able to rake in a fortune at auction also get taken out.
The vast majority of number plates will not resemble a word.
Each number and letter do, however, have a specific meaning and function.
The first letter refers to the region of the country the car was registered in – e.g E for Essex – and the second letter to the local DVLA office.
Following the two letters are two numbers which from 2001 have been age identifiers.
For example in 2018 they will be ’18’ and ’68’ and before the ’68’ plate came in they were ’08’ and ’58’.
Lastly the final three characters are random letters to make the number plate unique.
Here is a list of some of the specific 2018 plates that were suppressed by the DVLA: AT18 TTY, AD18 OLF, **18 OOB, , BB18 JOB, BO18 CKS, BR18 ERY, CC18 BNP, PU18 BES and, RO18 BER.
