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British
Columbia Personalized License Plates
A
special thanks to Bill Hobbis for providing the #579 plate run pictured
below
The
history of vanity plates in British Columbia, or as they are
more often referred to today; Personalized license plates,
is a much longer tradition than one might initially suspect.
We are all familiar with the current incarnation of these
plates; the specialty base plate designed in 1980 specifically
for motorists wishing to personalize their car with a certain
slogan or combination of letters and numbers. The reality,
however, is that since the first B.C. plates, some people
have sought out “that one plate” which best represents
who they are as an individual. |
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From
1913 until 1969, with the brief exception of a three year
period between 1952-1954, the province generally issued all
of its plates based on a four (0-000) to six digit (000-000)
format, commencing at number one. Unlike other jurisdictions
across North America, British Columbia did not engage in the
practice of reserving low license plate numbers for dignitaries
or high-ranking politicians. The only exception to this rule
is made for the Lieutenant-Governor who, as the Queen’s
representative and the nominal head of the province by law,
may not be taxed. |
To
distinguish the Lieutenant-Governor’s car, a large, die-struck
British Columbia coat-or-arms is attached to a generic base-plate
and affixed to the official vehicle. Consequently, low-numbered
plates remained available to the public often on a first-come,
first-served basis. That the old central office of the Motor
Vehicle Branch (MVB), in Victoria annually reserved the first
block of numbers further created an opportunity for motorists
to play a numbers game and vie for specific plates. |
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Under
the province’s registration system, plates usually remained
valid for a two-month grace period after their annual expiration,
and new plates could generally be purchased in the first week
of January or February. This resulted in the formation of
long lines outside the Victoria office on the night before
the new plates went on sale as drivers sought to obtain their
coveted numbers. The rule-of-thumb in distributing plates
was that if a motorist had displayed a specific number the
year before, they were entitled to request it again the following
year. If, however, a registration was allowed to lapse, which
was usually a few weeks after plates began to be issued, the
number would be re-assigned to the first person to ask for
it. |
Registration
data for 1923 shows that numbers ranging as high as the 8-000
range were becoming the subject of special requests, but invariably
the most popular was for No. 1. In 1928 alone, the MVB received
88 requests by mail alone seeking the coveted first plate,
including one from the widow of the late Dr. Miller, ex-plate
holder of the 1927 No. 1. While all low numbers were inevitably
sought after, other plates also held significance for motorists.
Poker hands, such as 1111 (denoting four aces), and bridge
hands were a popular choice, along with historic dates such
as 1492 and 1066, phone numbers, and house addresses. |
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Other
interesting stories have been related involving plate #54
which was sought by the Provincial Secretary in the 1950s
at the behest of his children, after the popular television
show “Car 54, where are you?” In this case, the
best that the MVB could provide was #52, which happened to
be the first year the Secretary had been elected, and the
year that his party had come to power - so he accepted. It
was also reported that a sales representative of the Heinz
Company routinely reserved plate #57 (for obvious reasons). |
Competition
for these numbers became so intense over the years that the
MVB eventually resorted to implementing a special reserve
list that only applied to numbers between 1 to 7,000 - a total
that was later reduced for administrative purposes to numbers
1 to 3,000. Special exemptions to this rule were allowed for
Premier John Hart in the 1940s, who requested plate number
15,000 for use on his own vehicle. The province’s fleet
of cars was also reserved numbers between 19,000 to 19,999
in the 1950s and 1960s. |
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The
history of plate No. 1 in this period provides the most interesting
tale of all the “vanity” number plates. After registering
the first motor vehicle in British Columbia in 1904, John
Barnsley would maintain the No. 1 plate until 1919 or 1920.
Its ownership throughout the 1920s is little less clear but
by the 1930s it had become the property of General Noel Murray
(builder and proprietor of the Qualicum Beach Hotel on Vancouver
Island). Murray would have the number until 1938 when the
Department of Public Works “got its application in first
and obtained the plate.” Of course, convention would
seem to suggest that as the previous year’s holder of
the plate, Murray retained the right of first refusal. The
province, however, had different ideas. Public Works attached
the plate to the official government car used for transporting
the premier, visiting dignitaries and other notables such
as the Senior Naval Officer of the Pacific Fleet. It should
be noted that this was not Premier Pattulo’s personal
car, that vehicle displayed plate #951, the same number as
his residential address on Beach Drive in Victoria. |
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Plate
No. 951 (above)
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| Duff
Pattullo (left) |
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The
province would retain the rights to No. 1 through 1954 and
the three-year, experimental Totem base plate. With the return
to a six digit (000-000) format in 1955, the MVB warned motorists
that the headache of deciding whom to award plate No. 1 to
did not warrant its re-release. Instead, it was now to be
hung from the wall of the central office of the MVB in Victoria
as a “memento.” |
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By
1966, the number of people requesting plates from the reserve
list had skyrocketed from a reasonable 1,800 in 1946 to an
astounding 35,000. Suggestions had been made in the late 1950s
of introducing the first “personalized” car plates
in attempt to exploit this growing demand. Simple in form,
they would have offered motorists, for a five-dollar fee,
the issuance of a special number, while ten dollars would
grant the potential to have initials “such as that of
their girlfriend” put on a plate. However, after the
filing difficulties associated with the Totem serial format,
this suggestion was unlikely to ever see the light of day.
Nevertheless, the administrative cost of sorting out over
thirty-five thousand applications for less than three thousand
plates was unsustainable. Equally problematic was British
Columbia’s six-digit format as vehicle registration was
slowly progressing towards the one million mark, and the exhaustion
of the series. |
In
preparing for the transition to a new alpha-numeric combination
in 1970 that would be renewed annually through the use of
validation decals, the Attorney-General, Leslie Peterson,
was adamant that the end of the 000-000 format would also
mark the end of the special reserve list. He was quoted at
the time as saying: “It is a big expense to the taxpayer
to service a small number of people.” |
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Despite the Attorney-General’s best
intentions to save the taxpayers money, what did not change
was the distribution of plates from the central office of
the MVB in Victoria. In keeping with tradition, the provincial
capital was to once again receive the first bloc of plates.
And, predictably enough, at midnight of the day the new series
were to go on sale, a line formed outside the MVB offices
to obtain AAA-001 (the law stipulated that AAA-000 was invalid,
as zero was not seen to be a number). After waiting eight
hours, and having been shown the coveted plate by a clerk
working inside the office, the first person through was awarded
with plate AAA-003!
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For two weeks the MVB remained silent on
the subject as the local press speculated as to where the
first two plates may have ended up? All that the authorities
were willing to concede was that the plates had been legally
issued, but not to any MVB employees. When the truth finally
came out, it was revealed that a clerk with the Liquor Control
Board (LCB) had been awarded plate AAA-001 (AAA-002 had gone
to a member of the Canadian Armed Forces). The LCB had routinely
loaned employees to the MVB in previous years to assist with
the January rush, an opportunity this particular LCB employee
used to their advantage!
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The
1970 base plate would be used for three years, and when a
new base was introduced in 1973, the series would start at
LAA to XKK, with Victoria being given a 200,000-plate bloc
in the VD range. With no apparent low numbered plates now
available to motorists, pressure began to build on the province
by the end of the decade to follow the lead of Ontario, and
numerous other American states to introduce a special personalized
plate. |
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Acting
in his dual capacity as Minister of Energy, Transport and
Communications, Premier Bennett announced in May of 1978 that,
following the hundreds of requests from motorists, he would
be taking a proposal to cabinet allowing license plates to
carry unique names, numbers or messages. Beginning July 2,
1979, the province began accepting applications for slogans
on a first-come, first-served basis, at a cost of $75 for
five years in addition to the average $22 annual license plate
fee. |
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This
is a rare plate indeed! It is a "SAMPLE" of
the personalized base plate. ICBC does not generally
make these available to the public, or collectors, but
this specific plate showed up at the 2002 ALPCA Convention
donation auction (within the pile of plates donated
by the various Motor Vehicle Issuing Authorities located
across North America). |
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Production
of the plates was farmed out to Acme Signal Signs of Montreal,
while design problems prevented the plates from being issued
until late December of 1979. The Minister of Highways presented
the first personalized plate; “HEALEY,” in a ceremony
on December 6, 1979, to Richard Rogers of White Rock for use
on his Healey sports car. |
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Although slogans could be anything from
two to six characters, the MVB was so determined that nothing
offensive, or any double entendre slip through that everything
from foreign language computers to mirrors were employed to
catch offending phrases. Some of the most popular requests
were for “BIG MAC,” “SMOKEY,” “HELP,”
and “MAYDAY.” Many other slogans, however, would
not make it through the MVB’s list of 2,500 unacceptable
words culled from the brainstorming of Branch employees, and
lists provided by Texas, Oregon, California. Some of the forbidden
words revolved around any references to drugs, liquor, race,
politics and sex, including “SEX.”
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Of the first 2,000 applications only fifty-five
were to be rejected, including “IMEASY,” “IM4SEX,”
“HOOKER,” and “GORF” (frog backwards –
a cultural insult in Canada). Over the years there has been
almost no change to the design of the personalized plates.
The now familiar mountain-ocean graphic was the first graphic
base plate ever issued in the province. Astrographic Industries
Ltd. took over production of the plates in the mid-1980s when
it won the contract to supply all of the province’s license
plates.
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3M
inks for use on 3M reflectorized sheeting are employed in
the manufacture of the plates. The mountains are colour code
708 (green), the ocean; code 5901V (blue) and the digits;
colour code 705 (black). There does exist brief run issued
in the mid-1990s in which the paint used on the digits is
a very noticeable light blue. As it turns out, this lighter
blue is actually closer to the original specifications for
the character colours. With the switch to Waldale in late
2002, ICBC has taken steps to have the paint colour on all
PLP characters brought back to spec. This has resulted in
a very noticeable light blue on the plates (similar in tone
to the colour found on the numbers and letters of the standard
passenger plates). |
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Even
though ICBC tends to try and discourage the use of the letters
"BC" in Personalised license plates,
it is not without precedent as can be seen in the plate shown
above. |
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Other
variances can be found in the mountain graphic that comprises
the top of the plate. For an even briefer run produced in
the mid-1980s, this graphic was erroneously reversed with
the silhouetted mountain peaks appearing on the left side
of the plate instead of the right. Currently, there are an
estimated 18,000 personalized plates on the roads of British
Columbia. Unfortunately, slogans must still be restricted
to only six digits plus a dash, or space (a requirement this
author hopes will be changed to seven digits in the not too
distant future). |
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With
the recent switching of utility trailer plates to an alpha-numeric
code, all letters in the alphabet became available for use
on smaller die plates, allowing personalized license plates
to appear on motorcycles for the first time in 2000. |
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In
the Fall of 2002, ICBC awarded the contract to produce
BC license plates to Waldale Industries of Nova Scotia.
with this change in manufacturers has come an obvious
change in the types of dies used on all BC plates. A
subtler change, however, can also be seen in the placement
of characters on the personalized base plate, along
with the colours used on the characters and ocean graphic.
Can you spot the differences? |
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Above
is an image of how the characters would have been positioned
on a traditional Personalized base plate. Note how the
characters blend in with the ocean graphic. |
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Now,
here is the same plate with the characters positioned
slightly higher in order to improve legibility. Notice
also, that with both plates the colouring of the characters
and the ocean is the same light blue as is used on standard
passenger plates! |
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WTF! |
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It
is well known that license plates can commonly induce
bouts of absurdity from otherwise normal people (the
examples are too numerous to list here). Generally,
these instances of silliness do not extend beyond the
issuing jurisdiction, however, in June of 2008 one particularly
priggish motorist in North Carolina managed to bring
the national media spotlight to bear on three, otherwise
innocuous letters: “WTF”. |
As
the story goes, the “WTF” letter combination
was the first one available to motorists when the state
switched over from blue- to red-lettered plates, and
just under 10,000 sets were issued, including a pair
to 60 year old grandmother and elementary school teacher
Mary Ann Hardee. Not unreasonably, Hardee was blissfully
unaware that, in the vernacular of cell phone text messaging,
“WTF” is a commonly used acronym denoting
“what the f***!” |
Mary Ann Hardee |
Offending
North Carolina license plate |
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When
Hardee’s teenaged grandchildren tipped her off
as to the techno-shorthand of her license plate she
apparently developed such an acute case of "self-consciousness",
that she petitioned the DMV for replacement plates (free
of charge, of course). The DMV obliged and went a step
further by offering to replace all 10,000 “WTF”
sets free of charge. |
So,
what does this have to do with British Columbia license
plates? Well, ICBC (along with every other issuing authority),
filters and reviews all proposed personalised plate
slogans in order to catch combinations deemed “offensive”.
One such tool that is commonly used is the Internet
Acronyms Dictionary (which, incidentally, includes “WTF”). |
It was, therefore, with some surprise and mild amusement
(actually, I was LMAO) when one of our intrepid plate
spotters sent in the following image in July 2008: |
WTF
is this?!?! |
One
would have thought that will all the publicity surrounding
the North Carolina incident such a plate would have
been nixed by the fine folks at ICBC who are charged
with monitoring for “unseemly, vulgar, indecent
or [slogans that] may offend any person”, or maybe
it is simply that this particular motorist has a rather
fortuitous set of initials ... |
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While
we are on the topic of offensive license plates, it
escapes me how this culprit also got through the system
as clearly it would be offensive to pretty much any
hockey fan living in British Columbia (we are all Canucks!).
I ask you, would Service Alberta ever let a "GO
NUCKS" through? I highly doubt it! |
This is
pure blasphemy on a BC license plate!
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| Sources |
| Dan Howlett, "Decoding British Columbia
License Plates", http://www.kasumirecords.com/bcplates/index.htm
(October 28, 2001). |
| Vancouver Province Newspaper |
| Vancouver Sun Newspaper |
| Victoria Colonist Newspaper |
| Victoria Daily Times Newspaper |
© Copyright Christopher John
Garrish. All rights reserved.
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