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Personalized car license plates go on sale in Beijing

By Cui Xiaohuo (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-07 07:53

The last time car owners were allowed to have their personalized six-digit license plates, the policy was abused with such choices as "FBI-001".

Monday, the policy was reintroduced, and car owners showed a lot more restraint in their choices.

Many who queued outside the offices of local transport authorities said they were concentrating on lucky and favorite numbers.

A Beijing resident selects his license plate number using an automated machine service in Chaoyang district October 6, 2008. [cnsphoto]

"With the new regulations, I honestly don't think we will face the kind of embarrassment in 2002," Zhang Jingchun, spokesman for the Beijing transport traffic management bureau, told China Daily.

The rules leave no room for strange numbers like "USA-911", and a black market in these license plates.

However, they have not hindered creativity.

The first car plate awarded to a Shanghai resident Monday was "A11A11", which sounds like the widely used exclamation in Mandarin, "Ah Yo Yo".

In Beijing, the first customized car plate issued was "NV8888". This was related to the auspicious "eight" during the Beijing Olympics grand opening at 8 pm on "08/08/2008".

Many car owners, however, had their own interpretation of their favorite numbers.

"Those eights and sixes (both seen as lucky numbers by most Chinese) are just numbers to me," Gao Hongbo, a national soccer league manager, said.

"My family and I picked numbers and letters that are meaningful to us," he said.

Gao said "N168B0", includes his first name and the lucky numbers of his wife and son.

This is Gao's second car, and the last digit 0 means he cannot use it on Fridays, when a new traffic control rule starts on Saturday to ban the city's 3.4 million cars from the roads for one day each week, depending on their number plates.

Not everyone, is bothered by the new restriction.

"My husband and I have to forget the once a week restriction," Zhao Dan, said.

Zhao will select her number next week when her new car arrives.

"I will simply choose our family's favorite numbers, that's all," Zhao said.

She lives in Beijing's Shunyi district, about 30 km from downtown.

The new plate rules allow owners to pick four numerical digits, and the last digit has to be any of the letters from the English alphabet.

There are nearly 1 million combinations, Beijing transport authority said, so they have asked car owners not to rush.

The new car plates cost the same as ordinary ones at 500 yuan ($73). More than 1,300 plates were issued Monday, about 30 percent more than on an average day.

"Most of the car owners got what they wished for, Zhang said.

The new plates will be issued to the owners within three days.