Cherished Number Plates News

Charity Number Plates

25 September 2008

There are more than 24 000 motorists driving around KwaZulu-Natal with personalised number plates, and while they are doing so they are helping to build regional roads in poverty-stricken areas.

Charmaine Bezuidenhout, manager of Choice Numbers, said the province gets an average of 450 applications a month for personalised plates. Any application that might be considered offensive goes before an adjudicating committee, which can put the brakes on any plate it deems to be inappropriate despite the money going to building roads.

"They will check if the plate will be offensive, gender-biased or even blasphemous," she said.

The cost of a personalised licence plate is R 1,500. This money is divided up into running costs of the licence plates governing body and to development schemes.

The roads that are built help to connect poor, remote areas with more prosperous regions and also allow the easier passing of trade and supplies to these areas.

"We don't plan to increase the cost of a personalised plate because we don't see it as a service only for the wealthy," says Bezuidenhout. "If you can afford it, you can buy a plate, no matter what car you drive."

Although these words may seem a little harsh, the region is still divided into class-like regions, with the rich only rarely helping the poor, albeit inadvertently by purchasing licence plates.