The NC DMV will soon begin replacing old license plates. Here’s what you need to know
Note: The NC DMV has temporarily suspended the replacement of old license plates. For details, go to www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article251133774.html
If your North Carolina license plate is at least 6 years old, the Division of Motor Vehicles is going to give you a new one when your registration comes up for renewal starting Jan. 1.
It will be the first time that North Carolina has set a time limit for replacing a license plate. Up to now, you could keep the one you were given as long as it held up. Some on the road are decades old.
But the General Assembly ordered DMV to begin replacing plates starting July 1, 2020. The date was pushed back six months after the DMV said it wasn’t ready because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vehicle owners will be notified if their plate is ready to be replaced when they get their registration renewal notice. They’ll be given the option of renewing in person at a license plate agency, where they will be handed the new plate, or by mail, in which case the replacement will arrive with the new registration card.
There will be no additional charge for the new plate, beyond the standard registration renewal fee and vehicle property tax payment.
But replacing the plates will cost money. The DMV estimates the state will spend $16 million on the effort in the first year, including one-time IT and other costs, said spokesman Steve Abbott. After that, replacing existing plates will cost about $2 million a year.
The DMV expects to replace 2.4 million plates the first year, Abbott said, and about 500,000 in the second year. On Jan. 1, 2022, the state will begin to replace specialty license plates, including commercial, farm, taxi and personalized plates.
The specialty plates will be made with a new digital process. They’ll still be aluminum and look just like other plates, but the letters and numbers will be flat rather than raised as they are now. Eventually all North Carolina license plates will be made this way.
Vehicle owners will have the option of keeping their existing plate number or getting a new one. If they opt to keep the existing number, the replacement will be a flat plate as well. Owners will also be able to choose between the three standard backgrounds: First in Flight, First in Freedom and In God We Trust.
Once replaced, the old plates will no longer be valid, and DMV would like people to return them to their local license plate agency office so they won’t be used for nefarious purposes. But there is no penalty for not returning one.
New license tags easier to see
The replacement plates use the latest in reflective technology to make them easier to see and read at night. They’re also designed to be more legible by machines that read plates to assess tolls or allow vehicles to enter or exit parking areas.
The idea originated in the General Assembly, which included the replacement requirement in a bill approved last year making other changes to motor vehicle laws. The DMV and the Department of Transportation say they didn’t ask for it; same for the State Highway Patrol and the N.C. Sheriffs’ Association, whose members will benefit from more legible plates.
The first version of the bill mandating the replacement was introduced in the House and included a provision with detailed specifications for making the new plates reflective. WRAL-TV reported that those specifications belonged to a particular product made by 3M.
The Senate transportation committee later stripped out the detailed specs for making the plates reflective, restoring language that simply said the plates should be “treated with reflectorized materials” to make them easier to see at night.
3M was one of two companies that bid on the contract to provide the reflective coating on the plates two years ago, according to Abbott. The other was JR Wald, which already had the license tag contract with the state. Correction Enterprises, a program within the state Department of Public Safety, chose to continue with JR Wald, which uses reflective material from Avery Dennison Corp.
The law requires the plates to be replaced every seven years. If yours will turn 7 in the coming year, DMV will replace it.
The new plates will be made by inmates at the N.C. Correctional Institution for Women in Raleigh. About 60 inmates work about 35 hours a week in the prison’s license tag plant, where in addition to work experience they receive between 20 and 28 cents an hour based on seniority, said Jerry Higgins, spokesman for the state corrections system.
The women inmates already churn out between 2.5 million and 3 million plates a year for vehicles being registered in the state for the first time. With the replacement plates this coming year they’ll make nearly double that many.
This story was originally published December 18, 2020 at 8:15 AM.
