Vermont Saved From Dangerous N1303K License Plate Combo

Once upon a time, the owner of this blog celebrated his exotic cystic fibrosis mutation -- N1303K -- by acquiring a New Hampshire license plate with that deliciously obscure combination of numbers and letters upon it. I figured that, one of these days, I would cause some geneticist to drive right off the interstate at the sight of such an esoteric assertion of mutational militancy.

That, as far as I know, never happened. But the exercise was worth it nonetheless, if only because of the way the clerk reacted at the Department of Motor Vehicles in Concord when I arrived to submit my vanity plate application. She admitted to being curious about what N1303K was all about. When I explained that it was all part and parcel of my daughter having cystic fibrosis, and our family's commitment to beating the disease on every front, this kindly gal practically burst into tears.

Then I moved to Vermont and had to re-register my car in a new state. The contrasting stories from each state of what it is like to try to acquire a license plate with N1303K on it offer, I think, some real insight into how New Hampshire and Vermont differ from one another. And, as is so often the case these days, the longstanding assumption that Vermont is the groovy state and New Hampshire is the soul-less backwater doesn't really hold up to scrutiny.

N1303K is a completely impermissible license plate in the Green Mountain State.

This seemed obvious from the get-go, upon checking the web site of the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles. It turns out that, however harmless such things are in New Hampshire, Vermont does not allow vanity plates that have both letters on them in combination with more than two numerals. I was resigned to this limitation, until I was driving along the highway one day and observed Vermont license plate X1951. I wondered if, perhaps, I had misinterpreted the applicable rules as they are imparted on the Vermont DMV web site.

So I filled out an application for a Vermont vanity plate reading N1303K. In due course, the Vermont DMV returned my $35 check along with my application -- with the word "denied" handwritten in red next to my request for N1303K. There was no indication that anyone had read or considered the earnest letter I had attached, explaining the whole CF thing asking the DMV to waive any requirement that would preclude such a combination.

This hardly seemed appropriate for a kindly and cute state like Vermont. It wasn't the rejection that smarted -- it was the lack of a nice note from some friendly DMV official apologizing for being unable to grant what was, obviously, a request of a thoroughly benign nature.

So, I decided to press on. Some quick legal research revealed that Vermont's statute governing administrative procedure contains an interesting provision designed to force state agencies to respond to citizens who think some rule or another is stupid or unnecessary or harmful. The statute says that anyone can ask an agency to change one of its rules -- and, within 30 days, the agency must either begin a rulemaking proceeding to grant the requested change, or explain in writing why it will not do so.

Invoking this requirement, in late December I wrote a terribly polite and respectful letter to Commissioner Bonnie L. Rutledge of the Department of Motor Vehicles. I explained the whole situation and asked that she either change the offending rule or waive it so I could have my N1303K license plate.

Commissioner Rutledge obviously didn't consider herself bound by the 30-day response deadline. But she did reply -- and here is her February 4 letter (postmarked 11 days later, on February 15) verbatim and in its entirety:

Dear [upstart citizen desiring N1303K license plate]:

This is in response to your request that this Department either grant a waiver from the administrative rule provision limiting the numbers that may appear on vanity plates to two or, amending the rule to do so.

Department rules adopted through the procedure of the Administrative Procedure Act have the force and effect of law. The rule in question does not contain any provisions that would authorize exemptions to be issued. For that reason, a waiver is not an option.

With respect to the amendment of the rule to delete the prohibition against three or more numerals, I believe that the rule serves the purpose of avoiding confusion between vanity plates and plates of the regular issue.

For that reason, your request for the Department to take action to amend the rule is denied.

Very truly yours,

Bonnie L. Rutledge

Commissioner

Well! I stand corrected and rebuked! Only an unreasonable and misguided citizen would fail to see how rational, even laudable, a government objective is avoiding "confusion" between vanity plates and ones issued routinely. If that kind of "confusion" were allowed to take root -- well, Vermont might become too much like New Hampshire, where major pileups have been known to snarl interstate highways when motorists are distracted by the bewilderment that arises out of being unable to distinguish, at a glance, between plates people paid extra for and plates that merited only the routine registration fee.

Not only that, but something close to chaos reigns inside the New Hampshire State Prison, where inmates working in the license plate shop have been known to riot at the prospect of being confused by whether any particular plate they must stamp out is a vanity plate or a plate "of the regular issue." Inmates thrive on certainty.

And of course there are the oppressed employees of the Department of Motor Vehicles in Concord itself. That poor clerk who took my application for my N13o3K plate was so confused by my request, and the resulting knowledge about cystic fibrosis that I forced upon her in an effort to resolve her confusion, that I expect she up and quit her job the moment I left the premises.

Indeed, one can see that by persisting with such an unreasonable request in Montpelier I engendered so much confusion in poor old Commissioner Rutledge that I immobilized her. Not only did she miss her 30-day deadline, but she also (I infer) was so bewitched, bothered and bewildered by having to deal with the whole thing that she let the letter sit on her desk for 11 days before she was able to bring herself to mail it on February 15.

License plates have a funny history in both states. New Hampshire once lost a big case before the U.S. Supreme Court, which held that First Amendment liberties are inconsistent with the kind of compelled speech that arises out of forcing people to promote the slogan "live free or die" on the front and back of their cars. Vermont has found itself embroiled in litigation over having deemed certain combinations of letters too offensive to be issued. So you can see how combining too many numbers with letters would threaten the very stability of the political fabric in the state that is so confusion-averse that it doesn't dare produce plates with official government slogans on them.

You win, Commissioner Rutledge. Thanks for considering my request and responding so thoughtfully. You are the kind of public servant who personifies the qualities that distinguish Vermont from those big, ugly impersonal states and their confusing license plates.