Florida’s DMV Accidentally Mailed A Grandma An X-Rated Plate. She Figured A Few Extra Honks Wouldn’t Hurt, So She Kept It
- A Florida retiree opened her mail to a plate reading SQZ A55.
- The double fives read as a double S from any real distance.
- Friends and family convinced her to keep the plate for some laughs.
We’ve all come across questionable custom license plates over the years, but rarely does the state’s motor vehicle department handle the dirty work on your behalf, sparing you the trouble of dreaming up something regrettable yourself. Yet, that’s exactly what happened to Nancy Dello Stritto, a 77-year-old retiree living in a quiet Pompano Beach senior community in South Florida, who never asked for any of it.
When Nancy opened her mailbox expecting a routine vehicle registration renewal, she was greeted instead by a brand new plate reading “SQZ A55.” The trouble with that string of characters is that from a distance, the double fives look almost identical to a double “S,” spelling out a highly suggestive command.
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The Pompano Beach retiree admitted her initial reaction was far from amused. She wondered how such an obviously crude combination had slipped past the state’s automated screening. Once she asked around the retirement community, though, the response came back overwhelmingly positive. Eventually her sons and an 89-year-old neighbor convinced her to keep the plate on her Hyundai Sonata sedan.
Nancy joked that at her age, she wouldn’t mind a few extra honks on the highway. Speaking to CBS News, she said: “I’m resigned to it; maybe it was destined for it to be on my car.”
But how did “SQZ A55” end up in the mail from the Florida DMV in the first place? The Sunshine State’s plates are actually stamped by inmates at a state prison in North Florida. Despite digital filters meant to block offensive language, random alphanumeric generation occasionally slips a gem like this through the cracks.
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As reported by our colleagues at the Autopian, this isn’t the first accidental plate comedy to come out of Florida. Back in 2004, the DMV famously issued plates beginning with “A55.” That one paired disastrously with the central orange graphic, and the resulting “A55 RGY” plate on a Lincoln LS became an internet sensation long before social media were a thing.
Any Florida resident short on Dello Stritto’s patience has an out. The Broward County Property Tax Collector’s office confirmed that anyone who lands an offensive plate can swap it for a replacement at no charge.