China Puts Brakes on Personalized License Plates

BEIJING —  China’s capital and other main cities have suspended a program that allowed car owners to have personalized license plates, after complaints that some choices were rude, politically incorrect or otherwise objectionable, including one reading “USA 911,” official media reported Thursday.

Ten days after the program was launched, traffic authorities reverted to choosing plates themselves, the New China News Agency reported.

A Beijing traffic administration official, who declined to give his name, confirmed that the plan had been suspended but would not say why.

There was no word on when or if the program would resume.

The program was also suspended in the cities of Hangzhou, Tianjin and Shenzhen, news reports said.

It allowed drivers to pick a three-letter, three-number combination for their plates.

Along with the apparent reference to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, the combinations included “SEX 001” and “TMD”--representing the key letters in a common Chinese obscenity. Other combinations included “FBI,” “UFO” and “VIP.”

Some combinations posed potential intellectual-property problems, news reports said.

Among those were BTV, the name of Beijing’s main local broadcaster, and U.S. computer giant IBM.

The program received an enthusiastic response from China’s growing ranks of mostly young, first-time car owners.

About 23,000 personalized plates were issued during the program, news reports said. It wasn’t clear whether any of those would be recalled.