Joe Yates
A supercar driver who splashed out on a license plate that read '370H55V' has seen it canceled due to obscenity.
Yes, like me you're probably thinking how can a plate as innocuous as that be deemed offensive, but apparently to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in Texas, it is.
Back in 2019, Safer Hassan was sporting the registration plate on his Lamborghini for months before receiving a letter through the door which read in part: "It has been determined that the personalization is offensive."
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He was then told that he must change it in the next 30 days before it becomes invalid.
Commenting on the news clip uploaded to YouTube, viewers were all in agreement that they were not offended by the plate.
"If you have to tell us it's offensive, it's not offensive," one person wrote.
Another commented: "That DMV must be run by a bunch of former 'hall monitors'."
While a third typed: "I wouldn't have even thought it was personalized let alone offensive."
And they weren't alone, someone else penned: "99.99999% of people would never have seen it. What stupid bull**** to waste time and resources on."
With a fifth adding: "I’m not offended, I’m actually impressed."
So what was the NSFW phrase that was hidden in the license plate, which Hassan himself claims he hadn't even clocked?
Well, it involved looking at it upside down - it spells 'a**hole'.
"Who in the world spends their time reading plates upside down? Sounds like a karen," another commented on the platform.
Speaking to local TV station KPRC2, Hassan said in a video uploaded to Youtube back in April 2019: "I had it for more than three years without any problem.
"People have no idea what that plate means. My closest friends don’t even know.
"I definitely think the state has over-reached its boundaries."
A spokesperson for the DMV in Texas explained at the time that the bans are only enforced 'if a plate evokes a response from other drivers passing that vehicle’.
Under a list of things that can't pass are references to sex acts, swear words and excretory functions. Once spotted, all of these are prohibited from specialty license plates in the state.
It comes as a woman from New York was inundated with thousands of dollars worth of parking fines from 'Trekkies' installing replica plates on their own cars of her license plate.
Star Trek fans may recall that 'NCC-1701' are the numbers brandished on the top of the spaceship 'USS Enterprise'.
Breda Koorey got it is a personalised plate in tribute to the show and claims to have been inundated with fines meant for other drivers.