Animal-friendly license plates are very popular in the USA, where councils let charities earn money, from people switching their conventional license plates to illustrated ones advertising their favourite cause. Considering everyone in England needs to legally have a license plate, it seems a fabolous idea. So why has it not taken off here?
Mutts is a US cartoon strip by the wonderfully talented Patrick McDonnell, who has used his gifts for 30 years to inspire helping animals and the planet. As well as writing several books, he also has collaborated with New Jersey state (an idea now emulated in other states) by designing images for their animal-friendly license plates.
Instead of tooting your own horn with personal number plates, instead people who live here can choose to buy animal-friendly license plates which contribute donations towards animal shelters locally, putting helping animals above expensive personal vanity.
Government rules are strict on number plates (re colours etc). But this idea could be enacted, councils would just need to liaise to do things legally. These are not the same as personalised number plates, as things work differently in the US.
Car owners go to their local motor vehicle license agency (which is local) to simply pay the fee and swap their plates. In the UK, DVLA is national (in Wales) so this can’t be done.
Barriers to Implementation
The road to legal approval is rarely smooth. This could be such a simple idea, but you can imagine the legal wrangles. Adding new ideas is not always easy, as it requires people to be more flexible and visionary in their thinking, and likely lots of paperwork. Government regulations are set in their ways, often resistant to change unless pushed by a strong force.
License Plates to Support Conservation Charities
Conservation Plate is a similar organisation, that lets people buy license plates, that support various charities for conservation, marine mammal protection and wild birds.
A quick look around the web finds the same happening in Australia. Which begs the question, why are similar initiatives not happening in England, a country renowned for being batty about animal welfare.
Why Do People Choose Private Number Plates?
It does seem daft that we don’t yet have animal-friendly license plates, but people are allowed to spend a small fortune on private number plates, just to show they have status and money. This is the only reason to have them, because it’s unlikely anyone else would even notice in most cases, that you had spent a lot of money on custom number plates.
Experts also say that due to the materialistic nature of ‘owning a car’ (rather than seeing it as simply a vehicle to get you from A to B), there is more chance of road rage with individuals who own them.
This goes for any reason to personalise a car from furry dice in the window to ‘baby on board’ stickers. Anything that hangs in front a car windscreen window (even a crucifix) can obscure vision and make it more dangerous to drive for yourself and others.
‘Baby on Board’ Stickers are Distractions
The ‘baby on board’ stickers tend to annoy nearly everyone. Not only is the subliminal message of ‘I have a baby, so I’m more important than you’ annoying. But reading the sticker can cause people to take their eyes off the road (and therefore have accidents).
Nobody ‘plans’ to have a car accident. So warning someone of the consequences if they ram into the back of any car (with a child in it or not) is futile.
A report by The Telegraph (reported on an Australian parenting website) says that 1 in 20 accidents may be caused by such stickers, because they obscure the rear window view.
And if there is an accident and paramedics arrive, sometimes they are looking for a child in the car (when the baby is not always in the car at the time). So the sticker is a time-waster, as most parents don’t remove the sticker, each time they travel without their child.
