Banned car number plates: naughty 74-reg number plates deemed too rude for the roads

Twice a year in March and September, the DVLA issues a new combination of letters and numbers, featuring the new ‘age identifier’ number that signifies the age of your car. These combinations appear on new number plates of recently registered cars, but there’s also a second list of banned car numberplates that will never see the light of day – simply because they’re deemed too rude for the road. 

We reported back in February on the previous batch of unsuitably fruity combinations based on the ‘24’ age identifier that the DVLA wouldn’t allow to appear in public. Plates like ‘AS24 OLE’, ‘BA24 TDS’, ‘W24 NKR’, ‘SL24 GSS’ and ‘SH24 GED’ were all withheld.

With the switch to a ‘74’ registration due from September this year, the new list of banned number plates includes some arguably even more eye-catching combinations that might otherwise have been snapped-up by eager buyers of private plates looking to cause a stir.

As the banned list reveals, it’s the ‘4’ in ‘74’ that causes many of the problems, due to its similarity to the letter ‘A’. This means number plates with certain suffixes, such as ‘74 NAL’, as well as full combinations like ‘FA74 NNY’, ‘SH74 TDD’ and ‘BL74 WJB’ won’t ever see the light of day, which is probably for the best.

The topic of banned car number plate combinations may seem light-hearted, but it’s something the DVLA has to take seriously, holding meetings before each new plate format is released – which happens twice a year – to ensure no inappropriate combinations end up on the road.

The criteria for plates to be banned is if they “may cause offence, embarrassment or are in poor taste”. The DVLA points out that it’s only a small minority of combinations that end up on the suppressed list, with the vast majority of registrations being publicly available.

The UK’s banned ‘74’ car number plates

You can find a full list of banned 74-plate combinations below, so we’ll leave it to you to choose any individual favourites. Please note that some of these are more explicit than those we’ve picked out above and may cause offence or distress.

More on car number plates…