What You Should Know About: New Plates for Vehicles Starting 2013

You have been hearing the news of new car owners receiving their license plates late. You have been hearing cases of stolen plates and transferred to another vehicle. These problems will be put to rest as the Land Transportation Office plans to release a new license plate format which would be effective next year. While a bidding process had not yet commenced (as of now), let's discuss about the new format which you will see in the future.

Starting in January 2013, a new design format with a new font and a barcode that contains vehicle and owner information are standard. Etched below is the region where the vehicle was registered. A one way screw comes standard so when one attempts to remove the plate, it would be damaged and cannot be used again. Private vehicles get a license plate similar to those being used by the Singaporeans, which has three letters and four numbers.

For public vehicles, they would get the same format but situated under is the route service of the vehicle. This alone is to avoid the "colorum" problem.

Motorcycles too would get the new plates but they would have two (both in front and at the back) and will sport five numbers rather than the four of the older ones. The font used for the numbers would be larger than previous ones.

While this is a developing story, let's wait for the official release by the agency in the later months.

For more information about this, watch this news clip below.