Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
US Navy Blue Angels among leaders of newly approved specialty license plates in Florida
The Florida Legislature revamped the specialty license plate program for the first time in years, allowing for potentially 32 new tags to hit the roads if they have enough interest.
Newly approved plates include designs for the U.S. Navy Blue Angels, whose home base is in Pensacola, and even a Walt Disney World plate that would raise funds for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
The Florida Division of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles has also begun tracking sales progress for those plates, creating a new dashboard on its website.
As of Dec. 1, the Blue Angels plate is more than one third the way to getting its 3,000 required pre-sales before the state will actually begin producing them.
It leads the way with 1,250 followed by the Divine 9 plate for nine Black fraternities and sororities with 1,127.
Next up is the “Conserve Florida’s Fisheries” plate that raises money for the Coastal Conservation Association of Florida, sitting at 982 pre-sales.
Then comes the Disney plate, which as yet to finalize a design, with 777.
The new plates options also include those for out-of-state universities: Alabama, Auburn and Georgia. They require 4,000 pre-sales before going into production. ‘Bama’s plate leads the way with 362 while Auburnis at 311 and Georgia sits at 188.
The only other plates with more than 100 pre-sales are for the Marino Campus supporting the Dan Marino Foundation, Daughters of the American Revolution, Thank a Lineman and Guardian Ad Litem.
Pre-orders can be made at county tax collector offices where those interested will need to pay the $25 annual fee that’s tied to each plate’s nonprofit organization. Some websites for specific plates have set up portals that cost more to do online, but don’t require going to the tag office.
The specialty tags have to achieve their goals within two years since they were enacted into law this year, or they will be removed from roles. According to the state site, presales began on Oct. 16, so they have until Oct. 15, 2022,
The new law also put a maximum of 150 specialty tags on Florida’s roads at any time, and the law is set to cull the bottom-performing tag come Jan. 1, 2021. The state sent notes to the bottom 10% of tags to inform them of their status.
The state currently has 120 specialty tags among 1,675,303 vehicles as of November.