License-plate mea culpa
Posted on December 2nd, 2007 – 8:40 PMBy Roadguy
Roadguy was so excited about the snow emergencies that he nearly forgot to post his column from the Sunday paper, so here it is:
WITH LICENSE PLATES, SOMETIMES “W” STANDS FOR “WHOOPS”
What do repeat drunken drivers and ham radio operators have in common?
They both might have license plates that start with W.
That was the major lesson of this past week, after Roadguy wrote that plates beginning with W are restricted plates that are subject to impoundment if the driver messes up again. The amateur radio folks — very few of whom are drunken drivers or otherwise in trouble — were quick to let Roadguy know that W doesn’t always stand for “whisky.”
My apologies.
Kris Chapin of the Department of Public Safety, who has been Roadguy’s guide to all things plate-related, was a bit red-faced as well.
She clarified that all restricted plates are plain white with blue lettering and have two letters and four numbers, with the first letter always a W.
The amateur radio plates, meanwhile, have the standard blue-and-white Minnesota plate design, complete with woodsy scene and canoe, “so the distinction is obvious” even if the plate number begins with a W, Chapin said in an e-mail.
Some plates showing a ham radio operator’s call letters start with a W, followed by up to five letters or numbers, she said.
And personalized plates belonging to neither bad drivers nor radio buffs may also begin with W, such as the exuberant “WHEEE” and the even more exuberant “WHEEEEE.” Roadguy sincerely hopes that those drivers stay well below the legal limit.
What about F, S, I, O and Q?
While the radio folks questioned Roadguy’s intelligence, other readers just had more questions. For example, what about S?
For several years, Driver and Vehicle Services has excluded F and S from nonpersonalized plates “because their similar sounds caused problems with our internal voice-recognition system,” Chapin wrote. “However, they’ll start using S (but not F) as they make the transition to flat, digital plates because they need another letter to create more combinations.”
And because of “readability issues for law enforcement,” the letters I, Q and O only appear in personalized plates.
What about unfortunate three-letter combinations that might pop up and resemble four-letter words or otherwise fail to be universally appreciated?
Whenever a new numbering series begins, an internal committee reviews the possible combinations and omits any that might be objectionable, questionable or otherwise eye-opening, said the state folks, who cited DFL and APE as two that wouldn’t make the cut for random assignments.
But before any DFLers write in, relax: You can still request that combination for your personalized plates.
7 Responses to "License-plate mea culpa"
DEAR ROADGUY,
FOR YOUD INFORMATION ANY PERSON DRIVING A VEHICLE WITH A “W’PLATE DOES NOT MAKE THEM A DRUNK DRIVER AS YOU STATED TODAY IN THE PAPER. THE CAR IS THE OBJECT THAT WAS INVOLVED. SO WHEN YOU SEE SOMEONE DRIVING A CAR OR TRUCK WITH A “W’PLATE DON’T THINK BAD OF THAT PERSON.ALL IT MEANS IS SOMEONE USED IT AND THE OWNER IS NOT TO BLAME. THEY JUST HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THE PEOPLE LIKE YOU THINKING OTHERWISE.
If the owner was the person who received a DUI w/a qualifying aggravating factor then the owner is to blame, since the owner was the driver.
The S and F business is fairly recent; there are plates starting with PFS all over Fairmont. I don’t know of another state that excludes those two. Some states, such as Nebraska, use all 26 letters in sequentially-assigned plates; others, such as Texas, exclude all vowels. California uses I and O only in the middle of the three letters on their plates, where they can’t be confused with another series.
No, the owner of the car may not be the person who was convicted of DUI. OTOH, loaning one’s car to a drunk driver isn’t the most intelligent thing one can do, either.
MARY HOFFMAN: please don’t yell. Also, Roadguy didn’t say the “W” plates make someone a drunk driver. You become a drunk driver while driving with a blood alcohol level over the legal limit. He also wrote about the “W” plates:
“Plates starting with W, it turns out, can be serious business:
The W is used … to identify a plate that is subject to impoundment — i.e. if they catch you doing the same thing you got the plates for, they’ll take your car to the impound lot until you do whatever is required to get it back. Offenses that can earn you a W plate include such things as drunken driving, driving without insurance or a license, and not paying a large number of parking tickets.”
He wrote “a plate that is subject to impoundment,” amd drunken driving is just one of the possibilities there.
The “W” plates have become known as “Whiskey Tags” because of the coincidence of the ham-radio/military word for “W” being “whiskey,” and the fact that many “W” plates are indeed earned for drunk driving.
Mary - You usually need to get more than one DUI before you are given a “whiskey” plate. If someone loans their car to someone who has multiple DUIs, then they may not be the drunk-driver themselves, but they are equally to blame. (I know a family who had to put W-plate on their family-owned-company vehicle because their son got multiple DUIs. It’s partially their fault for not taking steps to ensure that the person with the DUIs stayed away from the company vehicle.)
Roadguy: Ask Lisa when the state plans to begin issuing the new digital plates so I can get a new set of the last of the embossed plates. Thanks.
I’ve been looking for information on how the characters were assigned in the past, for example it used to be that plates starting with 6 were issued in the 6th district, trucks started with Y(?), etc. The highway department used to have explanations of all that at the state fair. ‘Twould be nice to document that history while the info is still around.
