Poll: Albertans flock to government website to vote for new license plates

The Alberta government has decided that it is time for new licence plates.

Residents are encouraged to vote for which licence plate they like the best on the Government of Alberta website.

Voting will continue until August 19, when the design with the most votes will be chosen to represent our province.

“We’re introducing a new plate because Alberta is the only jurisdiction in North American that does not use reflective technology on license plates,” said Kathleen Range, spokesperson for Minister Griffiths.

“It’s a safety issue. There’s better visibility with the reflective plates, so police officers are able to identify license plates when they’re on the road,”

3M, the company that designed the plates, has created license plates that are used across North America.

“They know the types of designs that are easily readable as well. You have to have consideration into the tones and so on, so that the numbers and letters pop off the license plate so they are more visible,” said Range.

3M designed the plates for free. However, the cost of annual vehicle registration will increase by five dollars to help cover the costs of production and implementation of the new plates. All vehicles in Alberta will be required to change to their plates when their registration comes up for renewal.

“Once the plates are available they will have to replace their old plate with a new one. Because registration can be up to two years, it will take approximately two years to get all of the old license plates switched over the to new one,” said Range.

Range added that there are about 165,000 unregistered vehicles on the road, and many of those are uninsured so they are a liability. Switching to the new plates will make it easier for the police to see which vehicles are unregistered.

As for the replacement of the ‘Wild Rose Country’ slogan with the provincial website, Range said that it has nothing to do with the slogan’s unwitting similarity to the Wild Rose party’s name.

“This is the recommendation from 3M. 3M has designed plates from all over North America and a lot of the States have gone to putting either their government address on the plate, or tourism [address] on the plate,” said Range, adding that for now the plates only include the government address, however the government is also considering adding the Tourism Alberta website.

“Again, it’s an opportunity to promote the province. When driving in other provinces and countries people will see that and hopefully they will learn a little bit about Alberta,” said Range.

Agencies/Canadajournal