Of Politics and License Plates
There’s something about politicians and license plates, they can’t stop messing with them. In Washington state, where you might think the Legislature would be preoccupied with a gaping $4.6 billion hole in the budget, lawmakers still have managed to take up more than a dozen bills this year that deal with car or motorcycle license plates.
There’s one to create special “Music Matters” plates. Motorists who want to fork over an extra $12 could let everyone on the road know that they care about music education. The proceeds would benefit music education programs (a far cry from the “Eat the Kids First” guy).There’s one to create a special “In God we Trust” plate. Because, you know, the phrase has been such a big hit on our money that we might as well put in on our license plates, too. And there’s one to create a special “Volunteer Firefighter” plate. It would complement the special blazing inferno plate that’s already available for professional firefighters.
Not all of the bills contemplate new designs. A few of the proposed bills might even benefit car enthusiasts. There’s one to eliminate the requirement for a front license plate. Another would scrap the law that requires all license plates to be replaced every seven years, a move that if approved would save drivers the cost of paying for new plates whether they need them or not.
But even as one bill aims to put a little money back into the wallets of the state’s motorists, another takes aim at the exemption collector car owners currently enjoy from buying new license plate tabs. If approved, collector car owners would be required to buy new tabs every year, just like everyone else.
Motorcyclists aren’t left out of the debate, either. There’s a bill that would give bikers the ability to choose from among any of the 36 special license plates available to automobile owners. As it is, a measly 24 of the state’s 36 special plates are available for motorcycles. Washington’s special “Square Dancer” plate is among the ones currently off-limits to cyclists.
No one seems to have a clue how to balance the state budget but at least Washington’s state lawmakers are hard at work tweaking the state’s license plate laws – when they’re not busy debating whether to make coffee the official state beverage.
Images by Dan Lee - www.dleefoto.com.
Great points, and good article.
No one is more famous for this license plate crap (Or being completely broke) than Illinois. They took my money for Iraq Vet Plates in December (10 weeks ago), and just got them Today. I was half assuming that they were just going to keep my money, and not send plates.
So after physically having the plates for only 9 months, they’ll be looking for another $99 to replace a small 1×1.5 inch colored sticker. Ridiculous.
Politicians are not productive, they merely pander.
Politicians are useless.
Still, we have something like 40+ different plate designs to choose from here in Arizona. I kinda like the idea of being able to throw a couple bucks a year toward this cause or that. I run fallen police officer tags on my daily driver. Proceeds go to a fund which helps the families of police officers injured/killed in the line of duty. (Also looks pretty cool.)
My tags: http://www.azdot.gov/mvd/vehicle/ImgLarge.asp?txtImage=FallenPoliceOfficersLrg_old.jpg
The full list of AZ plate options: http://www.azdot.gov/mvd/vehicle/mvdplate.asp
40-plus plate designs in Arizona? Well, I guess that explains why Washington lawmakers want to add more. With just 36 designs, we’re losing the plate race!
If having Brian’s license plates gets me out of a ticket, I want one. The cause is good too, of course.