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If you requested a vanity license plate in 2022 and were rejected, you're not alone. Many Ohioans were unsuccessful this past year in securing a vanity plate. In fact, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) rejected a whopping 759 vanity license plate ideas throughout 2022. That number sounds like a lot, but the denial rate is actually down 9 percent, compared to 828 in 2021.
Most requests were denied for including references to profanity (48% of denials contained the letter "F," if you catch our drift), drugs, sex and other inappropriate combinations of letters and numbers. When gas prices exceeded $5 a gallon in June, "GASFML" was one request made and subsequently denied. References to violence, like "MURD3R" and "SMT A55," as well as allusions to drugs, like "SMUGGLR" and "DRG DELR," did not make the cut either —despite the fact they probably would have made things easier for local police. Political references, including President Biden and "Let's Go Brandon," also made up a substantial number of denied vanity plate submissions.
Here are some of the wildest vanity plates the Ohio BMV rejected last year:
- "B8SC BIH"
- "DAFUQUE"
- "SUGRMLF"
- "SHWAGON"
- "OLD NUTS"
- "PMPWGN"
- "POO BUTT"
- "IH8OHIO"
- "BO085"
- "HOWDY HO"