LOS ANGELES, United States (AFP) – California has apologised for allowing someone in the US state to register a license plate mocking the October 7 conflict.
The apology comes after an activist group flagged a Tesla Cybertruck seen around Los Angeles sporting a plate that read “LOLOCT7”.
LOL is a common abbreviation for “laughing out loud.”
California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) said on social media on Thursday that it would be acting to rescind the plate.
“The DMV is taking swift action to recall these shocking plates, and we will immediately strengthen our internal review process to ensure such an egregious oversight never happens again. We sincerely apologise that these personalised plates were not properly rejected during our review process,” the agency wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
There are over 30 million vehicles in California, the vast majority of which have regular license plates.
But the DMV allows drivers — for an extra fee — to personalise plates, provided the resulting message does not “carry connotations offensive to good taste and decency,” according to its website.
Examples of banned plates include swear words, and racially or ethnically degrading terms.
