The new law on road safety will also address vehicle registration, resulting in a switch to a ‘personalised system’ where licence plates no longer apply to a vehicle but to the person or entity owning the vehicle.
When the vehicle is sold on, licence plates will now be replaced to suit the new owner. Drivers wishing to have a specific number plate may request this via the National Society of Automobile Traffic (SNCA) website.
Vehicle registration was previously carried out through a dual allocation system, with licence plates assigned at random or personalised.
Pol Philippe, Head of the Department of Automotive Technology at the Ministry of Mobility, explained: “From now on, new number plates will be assigned to people, whether they are personalised or from stock.”
The new law will also reduce the period in which people can reserve a particular licence plate without registering a vehicle, to prevent people from reserving numbers without using them. “Up until now, these plates could be reserved for up to three years. This will now be reduced to one year, and will also apply in the event a vehicle is de-registered.”
Philippe added that a third of all five-digit plates were reserved and then never fully registered.
Another change implemented through the bill: drivers must pay when reserving number plates, rather than at the moment of registration.
In unfortunate news for motorists anticipating a four-digit license plate through the current waitlist system: the new bill will abolish this list entirely.
Four-digit license plates are popular, but rare, and various combinations between 1,000 and 9,999 are no longer available. The waitlist, at the time of this writing, is made up of around 2,700 people and those on the list could anticipate waiting five years for a specific plate.
Philippe explained: “Number plates primarily serve to identify a car. We have opted to remove the waitlist for four-digit plates because it required too much management.”
In the future, anyone hoping for a four-digit number plate will have to check the SNCA system for their desired combination’s availability, although the search is unlikely to be successful. The number of requests for these licence plates will also be limited per person.
