981 license tags scrapped after complaint

NorthWest Arkansas News ^ | July 24, 2008 | NOEL E. OMAN

[fella]

981 license tags scrapped after complaint BY NOEL E. OMAN

Posted on Thursday, July 24, 2008

URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/232187/

Nearly 1, 000 license plates have been pulled from a state revenue office after a vehicle owner complained the letters on the license plate suggested a racial epithet.

Alice Kunce of North Little Rock said the sequence of letters on the plate she was issued at a local revenue office — NGR — struck her as offensive.

“I can’t put that on my car,” Kunce said. “What kind of message would that send ?”

Officials at the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration had no problem pulling 981 plates from further circulation even though it may have been a first. Each regular Arkansas license plate costs the state $ 1. 46.

“We want nothing derogatory or inflammatory on our license plates,” Roger Duren, who heads the agency’s Office of Motor Vehicle, said Wednesday. “This may be one that got by us.”

The state typically purchases between 300, 000 and 400, 000 license plates a year under a contract with Waldale Manufacturing Ltd. of Amherst, Nova Scotia. Waldale bills itself as the largest private license plate manufacturer in North America. It produces more than 500 types of plates for 16 provinces or states in seven nations, according to the company’s Web site.

The state has almost 2 million registered passenger vehicles. People pick up plates when they register a new car.

Waldale and a state employee review each license plate series before the license plates are produced to ensure that the letter sequence isn’t inappropriate, Duren said. No plate contains the letters Q, U or V. For law enforcement purposes, Q’s might get mixed up with O’s, Duren said. The same goes for U’s and V’s.

Each license plate series is produced in increments of 999, he said. Kunce picked up the license plate, 018-NGR, on Tuesday afternoon, meaning 17 plates already had been distributed.

“There are some that are out there,” Duren said Wednesday. “We decided not to issue any more. We certainly don’t want anybody to be offended.”

Kunce said she may have made the connection with the sequence of letters and a derogatory term for blacks because of her background as a middleschool teacher.

“My mind is trained to think in different ways,” she said.

The state used the NGR sequence on 1988 plates when the letters preceded the numbers, Duren said. “No one noticed it then.”

Waldale officials also said they have used the same sequence of letters on plates in other states, Duren said.

But 20 years ago was a different era, said Kunce, who was 4 years old in 1988.

“Maybe we’re a little more sensitive now, for better or worse, with this sort of thing,” she said.

And anyone who has seen the plate has had a similar reaction to Kunce, who showed it to patrons and employees of the revenue office on Tuesday and at school on Wednesday.

“Everybody looked at it for a minute and got it,” Kunce said in an interview. “It wasn’t just me.”

Kunce was told she could purchase a new plate for $ 1. 25.

“I’m supposed to be able to pick one up [today ],” she said.

Kunce and her fiance moved to the area from Missouri about a year ago and are only now getting plates because her Missouri registration remains current.

“My fiance and I are happy here, but this is not quite the welcome I was expecting,” she said.

[fella]

?

[EyeGuy]

“Maybe we’re a little more sensitive now, for better or worse, with this sort of thing,” she said.

---

Oh, I’m gonna go with worse, much worse, you race fascist.

[Vince Ferrer]

I wonder how much the 19 tags that slipped through will fetch on Ebay.

[MovementConservative]

The state typically purchases between 300, 000 and 400, 000 license plates a year under a contract with Waldale Manufacturing Ltd. of Amherst, Nova Scotia.

Uh, isn't pounding out license plates supposed to be a job done in the state prisons? What are those in lockup doing in Arkansas, watching tv all day?

[Jeff Chandler]

Plate With an Attitude.

[Cementjungle]

The owner of this car I noticed a while back didn't seem to mind their license:

[bad company]

I wonder how much the 19 tags that slipped through will fetch on Ebay.

The one that will fetch the most will be NGR-007. A brother with a license to kill.

[Old Flat Toad]

“Kunce and her fiance moved to the area from Missouri about a year ago and are only now getting plates because her Missouri registration remains current.”

---

Do they maintain a residence in Missouri, or just trying to skate out on registering in their new state? Did she vote in Missouri too?

[MovementConservative]

I get the aversion to text message combos like WTF. This takes a real stretch to say NGR is short hand for the N word. Only a real a-hole would look at the world that way. I suspect most people don’t go through the day thinking of vile words and seeing them in obscure places.

[TrueKnightGalahad]

So what's wrong with NaGgeR? ;-)

[SolidWood]

her background as a middleschool teacher. “My mind is trained to think in different ways,” she said.

At least she's honest about being brainwashed.

[SolidWood]

Naggers... of course... Naggers.

[weegee]

So are OMG and WTF now also removed if not why not?

What about WGR?

[BuckyKat]

I must be sleepy - saw the headline and couldn’t figure out what was so “insensitive” about 981. No need to explain. It finally sunk in there were 981 plates with NGR. Talk about obscure. Time to nip this BS in the bud.

[CaspersGh0sts]

Uh, isn't pounding out license plates supposed to be a job done in the state prisons? What are those in lockup doing in Arkansas, watching tv all day?

Nope, Mike Huckabee let all of them run wild and free!!

Bah-duh-bing!! (Sorry, I couldn't resist. :D )

[Thrownatbirth]

I’m surprised she would object, given that her name is “Kunce”.

[Fresh Wind]

Some countries don't seem to have this problem...

[marine86297]

My licensce plate when I got home from Desert Storm was Q8DFNDR. Can anyone figure it out.

Some people got it right away and others had no clue.

Semper Fi

[thefactor]

kuwait defender

[AppyPappy]

DMN!

[mad_as_he$$]

I just saw that episode again last weekend. Laughed my a$$ off the whole premise is just a sharp stick in the eye to the PC police climate.

[Fundamentally Fair]

“We decided not to issue any more. We certainly don’t want anybody to be offended.”

That's a unachievable goal.

[WakeUpAndVote]

[Fundamentally Fair]

So are OMG and WTF now also removed if not why not?

North Carolina Targets WTF License Plates

NGR Please!

[mad_as_he$$]

About 15 or so years ago a friend of a friend had a protracted fight that wound up in court with the Kalifornia DMV. They had issued a vanity plate “HIVNEG” to someone. This guy wanted “HIVPOS” since he was and he believed it was free and fair speech (and would attract other HIVPOS people to his AIDS education efforts). The DMV took the stance that it was “distasteful” - they lost in court in an NY minute.

[Eye of Unk]

I say make license plates digital, go barcode.

[Non-Sequitur]

Well there goes SPK, JIG, CN, SPD, or any other combination which might conceivable be twisted into a racial epithet

[aruanan]

“I can’t put that on my car,” Kunce said. “What kind of message would that send ?”

You got bent out of shape and whined over what you thought your license plate would convey about you. What kind of message does that send? Are you sure they didn't misspell your last name, Alice? If they didn't, maybe you could get it legally changed. Dunce seems far more appropriate.

[aruanan]

“My mind is trained to think in different ways,” she said.

Is that what you call it, Alice?

“My fiance and I are happy here, but this is not quite the welcome I was expecting,” she said.

The welcome you were expecting? Lady, it's a friggin' license plate! Those issuing it don't give a rat's butt about your showing up in their fair state.

With a maiden name of Kunce, let's hope your fiance's last name isn't something like Koch or a color or we'll be seeing your wedding announcement on the Tonight Show.

[Arrowhead1952]

No plate contains the letters Q, U or V. For law enforcement purposes, Q’s might get mixed up with O’s, Duren said. The same goes for U’s and V’s.

Well, anyone who could mix up a U and V, would probably mix up a K and X just as easily. That happened to a guy who used to work with us. Cops came to his house and wanted to talk to him about a robbery.

The witness (was ticketed later for driving without his prescription glasses) said the license plate had an X, but the actual robber's plate had a K instead. His car was and had been in the transmission shop for a week and the robbery happened about 6 PM the previous day.

[marine86297]

I knew a fellow FReeper would get it quick.

Semper Fi

[Islander7]

One of the Blessed 19!

"What is so deep about this number 19? Why are we standing on the Capitol steps today? That number 19 -- when you have a nine you have a womb that is pregnant. And when you have a one standing by the nine, it means that there's something secret that has to be unfolded."

~ Louis Farrakhan - October 17, 1995