Bloke ordered to remove offensive numberplate A Chesterfield telecoms boss has told the DVLA to naff off after the agency accidentally sold him the entertaining numberplate "BO11 LUX", then ordered him to remove it from his car. Alan Clarke, 49, spunked £399 last November down at the agency's website to grab the 'nads-themed plate, and slapped it on his new Range Rover. …
Murray: Here comes the Honda. This car is absolutely unique!
Hunt: Except for the one directly behind it
Number plates still come in pairs, right?
PS Yes I know the front one has a white background and the rear one is yellow, but it still reminded me of dear old Murray.
How can any of the comments here ACTUALLY support the DV-Capita owns your ass-LA??
Fact - DVLA sold a product valued at 400 nicker.
Fact - Consumer buys product
Fact - DVLA then criminalise product
Fact - DVLA attempt to recompense Consumer with something valued at the sunny side of sweet FA.
... and you people think that is fine? If they made a mistake and said "look, sorry sir, that should never have been sold, here's your money back" I sort of get it, but at no time does it seem they did. The practice you cretins are advocating here is downright bloody criminal. It's called theft ffs!
If you still think it is fine, then please contact me, I have a pen here that allows intergalactic travel, yours for a cool grand. Should it fail in that I'll happily replace it with a BIC I picked up at TescTroseBury's for 20p.
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me dad used to own it... sold the reg on for £7000 way back in early 80's to some yuppie from the city...
anyway... the cops should be pulling him over for illegally spaced digits on his plate... the 11 is too close to the BO... they get far more brownie points for that...
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/PersonalisedRegAndNumberPlates/DG_181503
"Vehicle registration numbers must be correctly displayed on your vehicle number plate. It is an offence to rearrange them to make them look like names or words or to alter them in any manner that makes the vehicle registration number difficult to read or identify."
"What could happen if you display incorrect number plates:
The police can issue fixed penalty fines for illegally displayed number plates. Offenders could face a maximum fine of £1,000 and in some cases the number plate may be withdrawn."
it doesn't help though that the example plate they show doesn't actually comply with the spacing requirements...
He could claim against on the same basis as the Sex Pistols (not sure who said it earlier but well put). Bollocks is used as a term to describe a priest or in place of the word "nonsense" in old english and was therefore deemed by a court of law to be acceptable and not obscene allowing Virgin records to display the Never Mind the Bollocks album in shop windows.
The chap will indeed have more luck demonstrating that bollocks is not an offensive word, there is indeed precedent in the Virgin case. My memory seems to tell me that Branson got an English Professor in to explain to court that the word bollocks traditionally used to refer to priests whom liked to talk a bit too much in sermon. Upon the judge quering whether this would be offensive to priests the English Professor proceeded to show the court his dog collar...
...the DVLA have the right to withdraw any registration mark they choose for any reason they choose (they own them all), so demonstrating to the satisfaction of a court that the word bollocks (or indeed bollux) is not offensive would probably achieve nothing other than run up a large legal bill.
Realistically I would have thought his only hope would be in proving the system is unfair and illegal.
Good luck to the guy, i think there are too many small minded people around if the number plate BO11 LUX causes offence. After all it is 5 letters & a number its just you can read it as all letters to get a word. Show me one person who says they don't swear & i will show you a liar.
He's claiming the mark was advertised on the DVLA website? I doubt it. More likely he typed in the combination of numbers and letters he wanted and an automated system approved it.
The problem with such an automated system is that it will probably spot such tricks as substituting letters for numbers. 1 for L, 2 for Z, etc. What it won't be so good at is spotting really stupid spellings. The word bollocks could concievably be spelled bollox, but bollux?
What's the betting he tried BO11LOX first and got it refused?
They shouldn't be selling fucking plates in the first place, they should go back in the pot when a vehicle is scrapped and be reallocated when necessary.
What a cheek to say we'll sell vehicle indices as yet another pathetic money-grab while at the same time maintaining this pious attitude toward language.
C11NTS
When are we going to grow up and realise, that if someone wants to spend money adorning their vehicle with a profanity, that it's likely the person doing the adorning has greater problems than anyone potentially offended by it?
I recall many years ago a certain motorcycle and truck racer known for his "sense of humour" used to own the mark PEN15. He got a pull one day for having rounded off the 5 so it more closely resembled the letter S.
And that tells you an awful lot about his "sense of humour" and indeed the sort of person who would own a "humourous" registration mark. It's obvious to just about any english speaker that the mark PEN15 looks like PENIS, so why would he need to modify the 5? All it got him was a fine.
Had I been the plod concerned I'd have thanked him for alerting other road users to the fact that there was a complete tool behind the wheel.
I knew a man who modified his plates so a 4 and 5 looked more like an A and an S. He got pulled and fined twice, once for each plate. Shame they couldn't do him for each letter as well.
about 20 years ago there was a Rolls Royce silver Shadow in Cardiff with the number BOI 10X, which i think reads better. Checking on the DVLA site it does not appear to exist anymore however. BTW quite a neat facility for seeing if your old Nissan Primeval is still on the road:
http://www.taxdisc.direct.gov.uk/EvlPortalApp/application?origin=vehicleEnquiryInfo_en.jsp&event=bea.portal.framework.internal.portlet.event&pageid=Vehicle+Enquiry&portletid=VehicleEnquiry&portletns=VehicleEnquiry_en&wfevent=link.next
Or are DVLA just being typical humourless civil service prats?
Whatever you may think of this guy because he chose to have a vanity plate attached to an already conspicuous example of crass consumerism, I have a big issue with how much influence whiny complaining tossers get to have over other people's freedom. Even if it is the freedom to be a bit of a git.
A few years ago when number plates were of the form F1 ABC, the DVLA refused to issue any plates in the series G1 AAA to G9 ZZZ, managing to piss off a lot of radio amateurs.
A few years later, when the current system started, they decided to relent, and allow this series to be sold.
They still want £400 a plate, even though they will only be of interest to one person, and if you are unfortunate enough to have a Z or one of the other letters which was not permitted back then, but are now, you're still out of luck.
Like I said, just prats.
Bo Eleven Lux is illegal? What's so wrong with Bo having a luminance of 11 lux? Too dim? Oh, because it LOOKS like something, it's offensive. Well, then the better take off all the 1, 3, 8, 0, B, I, O, and Ps from the plates because the resemble penises, boobs, asses, and other things.
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