NYS Stifles Free Speech | DMV Slams Brakes On Custom Plate

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION...

Moms, Dads and Grandparents Take Note!

Who doesn’t break out in a broad grin, or emit a mild chuckle, upon seeing a clever, witty, or funny custom license plate? Who? Apparently, the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, which recently “pulled” my custom plate, “PB4WEGO,” as “objectionable,” under the Commissioner’s Rules and Regulations.

As per 15 CRR-NY Section 16.5, the DMV prohibits the issuance of any license plate combination that would “promote or condone violence,” or those that are determined to be “derogatory, contemptuous, degrading, disrespectful, or inflammatory.”

Woe to the mom or dad who asks a child to “Pee Before We Go,” as the plate plainly, and humorously connotes. Is this simple plea, in the hope of avoiding that dreaded, “I HAVE TO PEE,” just minutes after hitting the road, an incitement to riot? Have we inflamed the very soul of toddlers everywhere, struggling, against all odds, to hold it in? Other than to evoke a smile, a passing thumbs up, or a wink and a nod from motorists and pedestrians alike, where is the groundswell of objection to the public display of benign jest?

Derogatory? Contemptuous? Degrading? Disrespectful? In all my years as a parent and now, grandparent, the worst I’ve gotten has been a gentle roll of the eyes from my kids and grandkids.

I have been told that I must remove and destroy the plates, for to continue to operate my car with said plates affixed would be unlawful. While rather trite, if not downright silly, in the scheme of things, and otherwise comical, but for the subtle attempt by DMV to stifle free speech and infringe upon a basic First Amendment right, me thinks the DMV doth protest too much.

Individuality, lost. Personality, quashed. Even the semblance of mild humor, extinguished. PB4WEGO is outlawed. I am, in the eyes of the State, reduced to a random combination of meaningless letters and numbers. Do only as the State tells you to do. Say only what the State tells you to say. Think only what the State tells you to think… A fine state of affairs in the great State of New York. Perhaps the DMV should consider pulling all plates with the letter “P.”