Cape Town -
Crafting the perfect personalised number plate is a fine art.
If you are spending a few thousand rand to adorn your car with one, you’ll need to get creative.
But not all are applications are acceptable.
You can’t drive around Cape Town with CHRIST–WP, or FUXOFF–WP or KWIKSEX–WP.
These are some of the 600-odd applications which were turned down by a vetting committee from the provincial transport department.
Their job is to keep offensive plates off the streets, and the rules are clear.
If you want a number plate with something “offensive, rude, sexist, obscene and or undesirable on religious or other meritorious grounds,” you’ll have to try again.
Then, if your licence plate application is too similar to another personalised number already issued, for example it uses the letter 5 in the same place another has used the letter S, you need to go back to the drawing board.
These may confuse law enforcement.
Most denied applications fall into this category.
But others are blocked for pushing the limits of good taste.
There’s the motorist who wanted the plate DEMON–WP, and – it’s not clear if it is the same person - DEMON1–WP, DEATH–WP and DEVIL–WP.
These were turned down, as were the explicit LICKME–WP, N**I–WP and P**S–WP.
So were ANUS–WP, BIATCH –WP, and BULS**T.
One clever road user thought POLICE–WP, would work.
It, too, was caught out by the vetting committee.
Their regulations state that any licence numbers that “may be required for official use” won’t go to the general public.
MANDELA–WP, 4664–WP and MADIBA–WP were all denied.
The personalised plates bring in extra cash for the transport department.
Fees vary from R1 750 for a seven-letter plate, to R10 000 for a highly sought-after one-digit plate.
Generally the committee vets the plates closely, but from time to time it lets something slip through.
A decade ago, Jewish groups complained when they saw the plate “NAZI–WP” driving around Cape Town.
As the Argus reported at the time, “Nazi” was a nickname that Capetonian Shanaaz Ismail has had for 34 years.
It had nothing to do with Hitler.
But after a request from the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, the provincial department of transport asked Ismail to change the offending number plates, and she agreed.
Barry Berman, of the company Plates, has been involved in the Western Cape number plate business for two decades.
Today his business makes personalised plates, and helps process applications.
For Berman, the best plates instantly link the car with its owner.
Some of the best he’s seen include I 8 A 4 RE–WP (I ate a Ferrari) on a Porsche, TOP GUM–WP owned by a dentist, and WASABI–WP on a green Volvo.
Then there are I AM OLD–WP on a vintage car, DROP OUT–WP on a Lamborghini and SPLASH–WP on a boat trailer.
Sunday Argus