Look ma, no letters

A bit of Rhode Island news:

To end a sometimes-infuriating flaw in the state’s car registration system, the Division of Motor Vehicles is retiring its traditional way of assigning numbers and letters to passenger vehicles and shifting, at least temporarily, to unique all-numeric plates.

The plates are the same as the current wave design, except for the all-numeric format. The DMV started issuing them in December and reckons that the roughly 300,000 numeric plates available will last four or five years — long enough to replace the aging computer system that is part of the problem.

Wonder if license plate collectors are taking an interest in this. 300,000 seems like a lot of plates, though. Will have to check eBay in five or six years' time.

Agency spokeswoman Gina Zanni said the change is intended to put an end to issuing new plates that duplicate old ones that have expired but are still being used illegally.

Posted by David on January 10, 2007 9:33 AM