ACLU Defending Tesla Model 3 Driver's FKGAS Vanity Plate

• A Tesla Model 3 driver in Rhode Island has a vanity plate on his car that reads (as shown above) “FKGAS,” and the DMV administrator is trying to recall it on grounds of vulgarity.
• The Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing on the man’s behalf, the Providence Journal reported.
• The DMV counters that it is acting because it received a citizen complaint. Wonder what the complainant drives?

Sean Carroll of Rhode Island would like people to “look at the world differently,” and one way he is doing that is by driving around in a Tesla Model 3 with the vanity plate “FKGAS,” the Providence Journal reported.

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Although the Department of Motor Vehicles did issue the plate initially, it received a complaint and has moved to recall it, threatening to cancel the related registration if Carroll doesn’t give it back. Enter the ACLU, which filed suit yesterday on the grounds of Carroll’s right to freedom of speech. The organization is seeking a restraining order preventing the recall and has also asked that the state’s law banning potentially offensive vanity plates be struck down, the paper said.

Carroll, by the way, explained to the Providence Journal that he chose the plate because his daughter said recharging the Tesla using solar panels is “like fake gas.” So apparently the DMV is reading that plate all wrong.

Either way, the DMV gave Carroll until the end of the day today to turn in his plate or lose his registration. He had used it for five months before the recall was issued, the paper reported.