Your concise roundup of world number plate news from near and far.
Number plate woes for Tesla in Sweden
Electric car manufacturer Tesla has had problems getting number plates for its new cars in Sweden. The national postal service had refused to deliver number plates for Tesla vehicles due to industrial action its workers were taking in support of Tesla employees. Mechanics at Tesla, who are members of the IF Metall union, have been striking in a bid to get the company to agree to collective bargaining.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is strongly opposed to unionisation at the company, took legal action against PostNord for refusing to deliver, and against the Swedish Transport Agency for not allowing alternative delivery or collection of number plates. Tesla claims that the refusal is a targeted and unlawful attack upon its business. A court has granted Tesla an interim judgement that will compel the Swedish Transport Agency to allow Tesla to collect number plates from the agency's offices.
The collective bargaining agreement sought by Tesla workers is one that nearly all companies operating in the country sign up to. In addition to the strike action by Tesla employees and the supporting action by postal workers, dockworkers and cleaning staff are refusing to work with the company.
ANPR errors in Bristol's Clean Air Zone
Bristol launched a clean air zone in November 2022, in a bid to reduce pollution in the city. Since its inception, however, the scheme's ANPR system has made numerous errors, resulting in spurious penalty charge notices being sent to people who never actually drove in the zone.
A driver from Sussex has received a number of fines despite never having driven in the zone and a couple from Cornwall has been similarly targeted without cause. Perhaps the most ridiculous error occurred when a woman was fined after her van was recorded in the clean air zone - while it was on the back of a recovery truck. The recovery company claims that the case wasn't an isolated one.
The main point of confusion (apart from recovery vehicles) seems to lie in the system's inability to reliably distinguish between the letters C and G, and the letters S and J on number plates.
Figures showing how well the clean air zone is achieving its pollution-lowering aim are due to be published this month.
Massachusetts specialty number plates raise money for charities
In our last world news roundup we mentioned the confusion caused by number plates being duplicated across different categories in Massachusetts, USA. Some American states have a number of licence plate types including different plates for passenger vehicles and commercial vehicles, as well as private number plates (or 'vanity plates'). While duplicates can't happen within a category, it is possible to have the same number in more than one different category. Not surprisingly, this has caused a bit of a muddle where ANPR and traffic fines are concerned.
This time, however, we can report on a more positive note, as the specialty plates category available in Massachusetts is raising a lot of money for charity, especially for environmental charities. In the last five years, The Registry of Motor Vehicles has sold over 206,500 specialty plates bearing customisation that features sports teams, local place names and even whales.
The first of these charity-funding plates was created 30 years ago when a specialty plate was designed for the Massachusetts Environmental Trust. Since then, dozens of charities have applied to have their own fundraising plate designs made available. There is even a 'Protect and Serve' plate which is sold to help fund a benevolent fund providing resources to the first responder community, including police and firefighters.
New number plate design gets a cool reception in Kansas
Politicians and members of the public have reacted negatively to a new number plate design in Kansas, USA. The new plates feature black characters on an orange-yellow background with the name of the state on a reversed orange-yellow on black panel at the top.
The new design is being introduced to address the problem of deterioration and flaking on older, embossed metal plates. Reports don't make it clear whether or not the new plates are manufactured differently, but the plain, bold colour design would certainly lend itself to acrylic number plates. Practical concerns about durability aside, the widespread condemnation is of the aesthetic.
One Democrat representative tweeted, "What in the straight hell is this design? Absolutely not ", while a Republican representative wrote an official letter to Mass. Governor Laura Kelly. The letter criticised the lack of consultation during the design and selection processes, and implied that too little thought and consideration were invested in the new plates.
The strength of reaction may seem odd to us in the UK, who have been used to two-colour number plates with plain backgrounds, but when one sees the designs that preceded this most recent offering, all becomes clear. Gone are the sky blue hues and graphics of golden wheat bending in the breeze. It is easy to see how the stark, new replacement might be unpopular.
* Kansas number plates graphic recomposed of images courtesy of worldlicenseplates.com and Kansas Department of Revenue.
