States using vanity plates to supplement budget problems
Posted on January 15th, 2012
In an effort to battle an ever-growing budget crunch across the country, many states have started charging significant amounts of money for personalized license plates, according to The Wall Street Journal.Some parts of the country have historically charged as little as $5 for the specialized car accessories, but recently Texas prices hit as high as $15,000 for a plate which read FERRARI.Many states are raising surcharges and proposing annual fee hikes for these personalized plates, but the Lone Star State Star took it even further. Texas hired a private company to raise $25 million over the next five years with a license plate auction, the newspaper reports. The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles was able to raise $139,400 during the states first auction.”The potential market is huge,” Stefan Lange, who conducted a study for the American Association of Motor Vehicles Administrators about total vanity plate revenue in the country, told the media outlet.Record-setting pricesIn the U.S., more than 9.3 million vehicles have vanity plates, but the 46 states that collected fees only raised $177 million, according to the AAMVA. In Europe, one man paid $400,000 for a specific plate, while in Abu Dhabi another driver purchased a vanity plate for $14.3 million that simply read “1″.Virginia had the highest percentage of new vanity plates, with 16 percent of the total plates given in the country, followed by New Hampshire and Illinois. Some states allow the transfer of plates while others have auction and inheritance allowances.Link with road rageSome experts believe vanity plates display egotism and make a blatant portrayal of how owners believe they should be treated. Several psychologists believe drivers with these plates are more likely to express rage through aggressive behavior.”We were surprised that something as simple as a vanity plate or having some personal identity attached to a car relates to a willingness to cut someone else off,” Jake Benfield, an assistant professor at Penn State University-Abington, told the media outlet.
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Tags: Budget, Budget Problems
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