New York drivers will start paying for new license plates next year — whether they want to or not.
Beginning in April, car and tractor-trailer owners alike will have to shell out $25 for spruced-up license plates, by dictate of state leaders coming up with new ways to wring out revenue as an unprecedented budget shortfall looms.
The new plates, featuring a bold new gold hue and a highly reflective surface, will make the roads safer and “reflect New York’s force and its resilience,” according to the state’s commissioner of motor vehicles.
They’re going to make roads safer? That has to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. A license plate between two giant red glowing taillights is going to somehow be a safety improvement? No idiot is buying that argument.
They will also generate $260 million in revenue and create more than 100 jobs — at the maximum security prison where inmates make the plates for up to 42 cents an hour.
Despite such benefits, some New Yorkers say the mandatory fee is an unfair tax on drivers already facing tough times. And, they wonder, what exactly is wrong with the plates right now?
“You really don’t need reflective material on your license plate with all the new cars — they’ve got plenty of reflectors and running lights on the side,” said George J. Williams, one of several upstate county clerks who are organizing petitions against the fee. “It’s really a burden. We need to take a stand for the people.”
Oh thank God! Job creation!
Are they really serious?
Williams is right. Someone needs to take a stand. Not that anyone will, but someone should. We can complain all we want, but the Governor ain’t gonna listen as he further runs the state into the toilet.
Drivers in New York have been besieged this year by a potpourri of fees. A $50 surcharge has been tacked onto registration renewals, and a driver’s license renewal costs an additional $16. Car rentals now include a 5 percent tax as well.
The new $25 license plate fee, which will be phased in as drivers begin renewing their two-year vehicle registrations in April, is up from $5.50 in 2001, the last time the state went through a full plate replacement program. Other states, like California, have never charged a fee for mandatory plates.
Drivers who wish to keep the same combination of letters and numbers must pay an additional $20 (holders of vanity plates, who already pay an annual cost, are exempted). That fee is a holdover from 2001, when the state switched from a six-figure plate to a seven-figure plate; drivers paid the additional cost to maintain their six-digit number.
Officials said the new plates, dubbed Empire Bold, would help safeguard the streets, as well as the state’s pocketbook. “Not every plate is worn down, but many of them are after years of usage,” said Matt Anderson, a spokesman for the governor’s budget office. “If a cop sees old plates, they know the person hasn’t reregistered and also that they don’t have new auto insurance.”
Matt Anderson needs to stop justifying this bullcrap as anything but a cash grab by the Governor. Period. When accidents stay the same after the introduction of this spectacularly retro plate, I want to see him come out and say “we knew this wouldn’t help; we just wanted your money.”
Utterly despicable.
Yet again, the government turns its people into ATMs.
