Policy On Personalized License Plate Review Board

Revised December 2002

PURPOSE: To establish a policy for the Division of Motor Vehicles to use in the administration of the review, approval, rejection and recall of personalized license plates in order to provide consistency and uniformity within the personalized license plate program.

I. AUTHORITY:

Section 320.0805, Florida Statutes

II. DEFINITIONS:

A. Personalized License Plate means a license plate manufactured with a

specific combination of numbers and/or letters chosen by a motor vehicle

owner to be printed on their motor vehicle license plate for an additional fee.

B. Recall means to require a personalized license plate to be returned for cancellation after the license plate has been issued and determined to be obscene or objectionable.

C. Obscene means a combination of letters and/or numbers found to be offensive to morality or decency, indecent, lewd, abominable, disgusting, a slur, profanity or description of body parts.

D. Objectionable means a combination of letters and/or numbers that provide

a feeling or expression of disapproval, dislike, hatred, violence, method of violence or threat toward a person or group.

E. Otherwise Objectionable means a personalized license plate, which has already been issued or assigned for issuance as a regular, personalized, special or specialty license plate or the combination of characters is not allowed by law.

F. Review Board means a group of employees of the Department of Highway

Safety and Motor Vehicles assigned the responsibility and authority for

approval or rejection of characters submitted as choices for a personalized

license plate prior to issuance or the recall of a previously issued personalized license plate, when determined to be obscene or objectionable. The members of the Review Board must make every effort

to be fair, consistent, open-minded, reasonable and non-prejudiced regarding all racial, religious and national groups. When a decision has

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been made to deny the rejection or recall of a personalized license plate and additional information or proof of extenuating circumstances is provided, the Review Board will reconsider the plate based on such information.

G. Review Authority means the Director or Assistant Director of the Division of Motor Vehicles, who has final authority for the rejection or recall of a personalized license plate.

III. POLICY:

It is the policy of Division of Motor Vehicles to administer the personalized license plate program in a fair, consistent and unbiased manner. The division will make every effort to avoid issuing a personalized license plate that is obscene or objectionable. However, if such a plate is issued erroneously, the division will take appropriate action when a legitimate complaint is received.

IV. GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES:

A. Tax Collector’s Staff Members have the responsibility to receive and process initial applications for personalized license plates in the county

license plate agencies. They are responsible for screening the choices

for personalized license plates to ensure the combinations of characters are not obscene or objectionable and enter them on the FRVIS 2000 System to determine if the choices are available for issuance. If approved and available, the plates are reserved in the FRVIS 2000 System.

B. Inventory Section Employees are responsible for screening personalized

license plate orders generated on the FRVIS 2000 System to determine whether the reserved license plate choices are approved or rejected.

C. Review Board is responsible for review of personalized license plates referred to them. They are responsible for requesting further research as deemed necessary to enable them to make a recommendation to reject or recall such plate.

D. Review Authority has the ultimate responsibility for making the final decision on personalized license plates referred to him or her to determine if such plates should be recalled.

E. Correspondence Section in the Bureau of Titles and Registrations has the responsibility for research, acknowledging complaints in writing and preparing the appropriate letters for rejection or recall of a personalized license plate.

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V. PROCEDURES:

Whether a Personalized License Plate Action Form (Exhibit A) is completed on a personalized license plate configuration for the purpose of rejection or recall, the completed form will be submitted to the Review Board.

The members of the Review Board will review the license plate configuration using the definitions provided in this policy and determine if such plate configuration should be approved or denied and complete the Recommendation By Review Board portion of the form Exhibit A. The form will then be forwarded to the Review Authority.

The Review Authority will review the recommendation by the Review Board and determine if such license plate configuration should be approved or denied. When the Final Action By Review Authority portion of the form Exhibit A has been completed, the form will be returned to the Chairperson of the Review Board for the appropriate action to be taken.