Do you want to personalize your license plate in North Carolina? But hesitate if it is acceptable or not? Then, you are at the right place.
Here, we gathered some important information about the license plates. For example, the list of plates that North Carolina banned. It will help you to avoid similar ones. Also, we will discuss the reasons why your vanity license plate may be banned.
Let’s start from the beginning.
Department of Motor Vehicles (NCDMV) is responsible for license plates. Thus, the Department can approve or deny license plate requests.
NC license plates should be renewed annually. You can add your special message to special and standard plates. The process may take about 8 weeks. During that time, the plate is either approved or rejected. However, there are no restrictions on application limits. You can apply as much as you want. But, of course, it is better to avoid rejection on the first try.
Now, let’s look through some banned license plates.
North Carolina rejects thousands of license plate suggestions just like other states. It is completely normal. Moreover, it is necessary. That ensures the community’s safety. Also, it helps everyone to stay on the safe side and not be offended.
Perhaps, the most discussed banned license plate has been the “Confederate battle flag”. The flag was for the “Sons of Confederate Veterans” group. The state ensures that it still recognizes the organization as a civic one. However, it will no longer allow displaying the plate. The reason for this is that the license plates belong to the state.
The banned plate and the reasons have been in the center of discussions for many major news channels. NCDMV has made that decision very recently. It stopped issuing the plates from the beginning of 2021. It also banned all variations of the flag on the plate. Besides, it rejected to renew any remained license plates with that flag. The committee said that the reason for banning the license plate is its potential to be offended.
The number of NC-banned vanity license plates exceeds 7,000. They are based on various reasons, which we will discuss in the next section.
Now, let’s take a look at some banned vanity plates.
These examples are just a small part of existing ones. Agree or not with the doubtful combination, they still remain banned.
There are many reasons why North Carolina can reject your license plate. The most famous reason is when the license plate is offensive. It may contain some vulgar words. Also, there may be cases of hate speech, and so on.
The other popular reason is the already existing license plate. Hence, you cannot have a duplicate plate. Note that each person’s plate should be unique and have no similar ones.
You should also be careful about the character limit. Vanity license plates for vehicles may have a maximum of 8 characters. Meanwhile, motorcycles may have only 7 characters. Besides, the vanity license plate should have a minimum of 1 letter and number. Special characters are also allowed. But there are space limits.
The special character space limit for motor vehicles may be either 0,5 or 1. Meanwhile, 0,5 space is not acceptable for any motorcycles.