New Hampshire has a long history of interesting vanity license plates. Part of this is due to a sign at the Dept. of Motor Vehicles that says "Initial Plates" and sucks in people who think they are getting their first license plates. However, the sign really refers to the state's legal term for vanity plates. The first vanity plates generally had people's initials or ham radio call signs. Clever abbreviations came later.

The high number of vanity plates leads directly to New Hampshire having a long history of controversies involving license plates. Combine that with a Revolutionary war heritage, a distrust of government, and New Hampshire has a long history of tussles with government over license plates.

This page started out as a story of a single vanity plate designed to call attention to the misdeeds of the Division of Children, Youth, and Families, but the story grew as I involuntarily and voluntarily changed the plates over time. The story is now too long for one page, so it is now four pages, one for each plate.

Click on each plate to get the full story.

The original. Its demise involved shocking, just shocking disrepect from the head of the DMV for fundamental civil rights. While I already had a page for H8DCYF, Virginia Beecher created a flap that may have made her wiser, it didn't leave her repenitent or apologetic for violating both my Freedom of Speech (1st amendment) and Security in One's Home (4th amendment) rights guaranteed by the US Constitution.

Okay, so I was gagged for expousing how I hated DCYF's disregard for parents' rights. New Hampshire license plates have images of the Old Man of the Mountain (even though he jumped to his doom in 2003). On this plate I added a little padlock over the Old Man's mouth.

GAGGED didn't say anything about why, so the next year I asked for AXDCYF and got it with no trouble. Even after I painted the bloody axe next to it no one hassled me. Axing is okay, hating isn't? But then:

A girl in foster care was falling through the cracks in the system, and we decided to take her in ourselves. After DCYF concluded we were the right family for her, they realized they now had leverage to "correct" my actions by claiming they were detrimental to the sensitivities of a delicate teenager. The story can now be told....

What comes next? It's hard to say. There may be a new head of the DMV soon. That might be worth a new plate. FIX169C is a bit too tame and few people know that it refers to NH RSA 169C, the flawed Child Protection Act.

Contact Ric Werme or return to his home page.

Last updated 2007 March 30.