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Department of Revenue to reissue new personalized and specialty license plates in '09Thursday, September 4, 2008
The Missouri Department of Revenue announced yesterday that it will issue new personalized and speciality license plate designs beginning Jan. 1, 2009. According to a press release from the Department of Revenue, they deviate from a uniform design, so the new personalized and specialty plates will differ from the new "Bluebird" plate and will undergo either slight or substantial revisions, depending on the type of plate. The department said the personalized plates will be consistent with the new "Bluebird" standard plate. Specialty plates will continue to conform to their approved designs. Beginning this month, customers with personalized and specialty plates will receive a notice well in advance of their plate expiration, asking if they wish to keep their current or personalized or specialty plate. Each customer will have the option of responding using the electronic or standard mail notification procedures provided on the notice. So, this begs the question - good or bad idea? And how pleased are you with the current standard license plates? Comments  The nature of the Internet makes it impractical for our staff to review every comment. If you feel that a comment is offensive, use the exclamation point icon beside the comment to send a report to the webmaster.
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Brian Blackwell is the newest reporter at the Southeast Missourian, focusing on business. A May 2008 graduate of the University of Nebraska, Brian is an avid Cornhusker fan. When he is not covering the business community for the newspaper, Brian enjoys spending time with his wife and church family, cheering on the Cubs and Cornhuskers, wishing for snow and hiking on the numerous area trails.
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Eh, a bit confused here -
I assume that the specialty plates are the ones with organizational or school logos - such as the Department of Conservation, University of Missouri, Kids First, etc. - and that the personalized plates are, or at least were, custom letter and number sequences requested by the owner - on the regular state plate template.
Suggest that if changes are made to any plate format, then everyone with that format should be required to get a new plate at the next renewal - none of this optional pick-n-choose. Further suggest that having old and new versions of the plates running around presents yet another level of difficulty for law enforcement - one of the main reasons for having plates in the first place.
If the old plate formats are going to be kept, then why can't I dust off my neat-o green-on-yellow Missouri truck plate hanging on the garage wall since '78 or so, slap a current registration sticker on it, and be good-to-go? Why can't those with the older general issue plates keep theirs if those with personalized and specialty plates can? The message here being that if the rules are going to be bent, then how much bending is allowable, and what is the justification for stopping there?
All seriousness aside now -
1) Don't care for the new plates - they appear faded from the get-go and are, well, kind of blah-looking. The character sequences are difficult to remember on the fly, also. Way back in the good ol' days - cars used to have sequences of letter-letter-letter space number-number-number - much easier on the eyes and the memory than the current sequence of letter-letter-number space letter-number-letter -- er, or something like that.
2) One idea for a 'special' design for personalized tags is that since the designs were apparently voted on - have the first place winner be the general issue tag template, and second-place be the personalized tag template. Specialty tag sponsors would be required to 'refresh' their designs every time the general issue templates were revised. Hey - it's an idea - maybe not a great one.
The "new" Bluebird plate looks like an Illinois plate at fisrt glance. It's too bleached looking. I still prefer the plates that we had. Lot or color and easily recognizable.
Seems like a big waste of money to me. Who's making the big bucks for all the metal and paint?