Raleigh, N.C. — Although North Carolina vehicle owners can keep their license plate numbers under a new state program to automatically replace old plates, there's a catch.
Starting Friday, any regular license plate that is seven years old or older will be replaced when the vehicle's annual registration is renewed.
Previously, North Carolina drivers were allowed to keep their plates indefinitely, and many are more than a decade old. People who needed a replacement plate had to go through a process to request one from the Division of Motor Vehicles.
Last year, state lawmakers approved a seven-year automatic replacement program because the plate numbers can get faded by weather and time, making them hard to read.
A DMV spokesman said people could keep their same plate numbers, but after a WRAL News viewer questioned that, the agency acknowledged that people renewing their registrations online couldn't get the same number.
Bobby Fergione’s grandmother, Jacqueline Fergione, was one of the first to be told she needed a new plate. He said he always helps her renew it online.
"She had an older license plate ... which she’s had for the whole time she’s been here, 20 years. It’s been on three different cars," Bobby Fergione said.
Jacqueline Fergione has the number memorized, and, at 84, she didn’t want to learn a new one. But Bobby Fergione said he didn’t see any option online to keep her tag number.
"I said, 'Let me call the DMV and ask,' and the lady I spoke with at the DMV told me that that option is only available if you have a vanity tag," he said. "So I said, 'I don’t think there’s anything I can do, Grandmom.'"
DMV spokesman John Brockman said the agency isn't offering that option in its online portal, which accounts for about 40 percent renewals, because the DMV actually doesn’t want people to keep the same number.
“We would rather not have customers using the same plate number due to the higher risk of fraud," Brockman said in a statement. "We chose not to add it online as the cost of reproducing the new plate with the same number is three to four times more expensive."
The 2019 law doesn't require people to turn in their old plates when they are replaced, and DMV officials fear people passing those old plates to others if the numbers don't change.
People who renew by mail or in person will have the option of keeping the same plate number without paying for a vanity plate, Brockman said.
But Bobby Fergione said the mail-in form his grandmother got is confusing, too.
"I’m guessing their intention is they want you to check this box, but they don’t explicitly say check this box," he said.
"I’d like to see them send her a plate with the same numbers and same registration, and I’d like them to make this process more clear," he added. "I just think that we’re getting conflicting information."
DMV officials expect to replace nearly 2.5 million older regular plates in 2021. The following year, the DMV will replace some 500,000 older personalized and specialty plates.
Also starting in 2022, North Carolina plates will be digitally printed on flat metal rather than stamped into it.
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