The Directorate-General of Highways (DGH) has been criticized for censoring letter combinations on license plates following its newest list of “unacceptable” combinations.
According to a list recently released by the DGH, words such as “FUG” have been banned, but other combinations such as “CRY,” the abbreviations for the nation’s two major political parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), “GAY” and “BRA” have also been prohibited.
The agency said that prior to issuing license plates starting with three letters, it had asked for the opinions of legislators and the public as well as consulting standing practices from various departments of motor vehicles in foreign countries.
The agency said that it removed many sensitive words after consultation, such as abbreviations for the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), the former Soviet Union military intelligence unit the KGB, and other words such as “ASS,” “BUM,” “MAD” and “PUG.”
Car salespeople said the list is organized haphazardly, restricting certain innocuous terms, such as “PUP,” “CRY” or “CAT,” while other controversial letter combinations such as “RIP” or “DIE” were not prohibited.
The agency said that it has ample basis for its prohibited letter combinations and most of the restrictions were based on foreign taboos, adding that it would also be avoiding the use of the letters “I” and “O” as they would be too similar to the numbers one and zero.
The agency also said that members of the public usually placed more emphasis on the numbers following the letters, as they are loaded with cultural meaning.
It said people usually avoided the number 4 due to its connection with the Chinese word for death, si (死), while they also try to obtain license plates with the number 8, as the letter sounds like the word fa (發), usually used in phrases connoting auspicious congratulations of making more money, such as fa cai (發財).
It was suggested that the letter combination “BAT” be removed as bats are usually stereotyped as “scary” creatures, but due to the success of the Batman movies and bats’ connection with luck, or the word fu (福), it might be brought back into the list of acceptable combinations, the directorate-general said.
The agency said that seven license plates in the top 10 in bidding value all contained the combination “8888,” the most expensive of which was sold for NT$2.1 million (US$64,293), the agency said.
The highest actual bid for a license plate was one ending in “6888,” which ran up to NT$8 million, the directorate-general said, although the bidder had not paid the amount and the bid was considered a bust.
Three years after license plates starting with three letters were introduced, the agency is still on the letter “A,” but some license plates, such as “AMY-8888,” have already seen bidding prices of NT$500,000, the directorate-general said.
The combination of the letters “AMG,” coinciding with the high- performance division of Mercedes-Benz, has also seen great favor among car lovers, and the license plate “AMG-8888” has seen a bid of NT$3.8 million, but the bid has failed twice in a row.
One complete circuit of one letter series could see more than 37 “lucky numbers” that could draw large bids on the Internet, the agency said, adding that in 2013, Internet bidding on license plates contributed NT$7.3 million to the nation’s coffers, and last year it contributed NT$115 million.
The agency said that Internet bidding on license plate combinations had already contributed NT$8 million to national coffers up until last month.
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