Other Countries
In Australia the various states offer personalised plate schemes, with some states having a yearly fee to maintain the cherished number. In the Australian states of Victoria and Queensland the proceeds from the sale of custom plates and personalised plates go towards road safety activities.
As of 2006, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Latvia, Luxembourg, Belgium, Poland, Slovenia, Iceland, Sweden and Turkey also allow such license plates.
German car registration law does not allow license plates such as these, but it is possible to select the two letters after the district designation and up to four numbers thereafter for a small fee. It is common in Germany for car owners to register license plates with their initials and a year or number of significance to them. For example, a man by the name of Jimmy Wales living in Berlin and born in 1966 might opt to register B–JW 1966, providing it is still available.
On November 19, 2007, Dutch MP Paul de Krom proposed that vanity plates be introduced in the Netherlands as well, after having seen them while visiting the United States. One barrier his proposal would have to overcome would be that the RDW (the Dutch vehicle registration authority) links license plates to the actual cars as opposed to their owners.
In Poland there is an option to buy an individual number plate at extra charge. The plate looks the same as the ordinary one, there is a letter showing the country district, then one number and then up to five letters of free choice.
In the United Arab Emirates, regular number plates consist of five digits and one optional character (depending on the emirate). So-called "distinguished plates" have a special combination of digits (12345, 55555, etc.) or less than five digits and are sold at public auctions, the profit of which is used for charities. Very low numbers fetch very high prices, the record being the number one plate from Abu Dhabi, sold for 52.2 million Dirhams (14 million US dollars). In Dubai, plate number one (without additional letter) is registered to the car of Sheikh Mohammed, ruler of Dubai.
Read more about this topic: Vanity Plate
Famous quotes containing the word countries:
“[W]e are all guilty in some Measure of the same narrow way of Thinking ... when we fancy the Customs, Dresses, and Manners of other Countries are ridiculous and extravagant, if they do not resemble those of our own.”
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
“Fame sometimes hath created something out of nothing. She hath made whole countries more than nature ever did, especially near the poles, and then hath peopled them likewise with inhabitants of her own invention, pigmies, giants, and amazons: yea, fame is sometimes like unto a mushroom, which Pliny recounts to be the greatest miracle in nature, because growing and having no root, as fame no ground of her reports.”
—Thomas Fuller (1608–1661)