Nice Try. You Wanted To Say What On Your License Plate?

I've never renewed my license plates tags online, until today. I figured the state's new computer is in place and has been working for over a week, so, why not. Take the plunge.

That tab renewal process was simple, but what I found while doing that got me curious. One of the modules you pass through on your way to handing over over a hundred dollars to the Secretary of State, is a little box where you can check availability of vanity plate requests.

The older I get, the less I want to call attention to myself, so I'm not in the market for vanity plates, but some people are, and somebody has to sift through all those requests and weed out (bad choice of terms) the questionable ones. Actually in Michigan it's a committee of four to five people. Oh, lucky them.

WXYZ did a story on this last year, and said most of the turned down requests were for things that were in "poor taste". One question that popped up in my mind was, now that marijuana is legal in Michigan, is "POTHEAD" okay now?

Sexually related requests are big, too as is the Land Down Under. No, not Australia. So V1AGRA, HE11NO, HE11YES, or P0RNSTAR won't be on the back of Michigan cars any time soon.

A similar story from Florida pointed out rejected requests for plates deemed to similar to law enforcement. "Tags labeled 1-FHP, A FBI and K-9 UN1T were all denied for being too similar to actual law enforcement." according to the WPLG story.

And with millennials now deemed the most sensitive of all generations, we may be seeing even less vanity plates.