An image of a Utah vanity license plate surfaced on Twitter and has resulted in backlash for the car owner. Residents in the state are horrified that the driver was able to obtain the offensive and potentially r… vanity plate,
“DEPORTM” which a high school teacher helped shed more light upon. Matt Pacenza is a high school English teacher from Utah, found an image of the offensive plate, and tweeted a photo of it along with the words: “Hey (Utah Driver License Division), how does this plate I just saw not your guidelines?”
Many people responded to the image. Over one hundred people saw the vanity plate as a “horrific” oversight. One person wrote, “that should never have been accepted by the DMV.”
A CNN affiliate, KSL, contacted the Utah Department of Motor Vehicles. After some conversation, the reporter came into contact with the public information officer, Tammy Kikuchi, who confirmed that the plate was real and had been approved in 2015.
Commission and the DMV were prepared to attend the meeting to make it clear that they do not approve of this usage of the plate. As part of the meeting, the committee will learn how Utah goes about deciding what is or is not offensive and who pushed through this controversial vanity plate back in 2015.
KUTV asked the DMV for a list of rejected vanity plate names and received more than one hundred, including, but not limited to, “SAUSAGE,” “NSTYHOE,” “W1NGMAN,” and “PLAN B.”