Creative Illinoisans

We used to see license plates that were obviously double entendres or foreign swear words or cleverly designed insults. The DMV has gotten better at catching them though, probably via humorless snitches:

• No Illinois drivers will be “BRICKED” on the roads next year.

  Nor will they bear state registration plates with “TYPESHT,” “IBPOOPN” or “ICUP,” despite praise from Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias for vanity plate applicants’ creativity.

  All four were among the list of more than 550 “inflammatory, profane, offensive or too difficult to read” vanity license plate requests rejected by Giannoulias’ office. They were a small portion of the nearly 56,000 applications it received this year, according to his office.

  “Illinoisans consistently show off their creativity on customized license plates, but anything that hits the road has to meet the standards of good taste and decency,” Giannoulias said in a statement Monday. “Our team is fluent in lewd lingo and sneaky swearing — and they catch it all.”

No, no they don't. Not all of them, that's for sure, but they are getting pretty good at it. We can only name one plate that doesn't pass the "good taste and decency" test over the past couple years.

Speaking of plates, have they cleaned up the State Plate database though? We remember there used to be a plate that came back to Wrigley Field, a la the Blues Brothers movie. And another one that came back to "Jack Mehoff" that we'd trick dispatchers into reading over the air. Someone told us there was another plate that had almost 200 responses that would make your PDT chime for the better part of thirty minutes if you happened to run it.

Fun times.