Share the Road specialty license plate in Missouri dealt a setback

MoBikeFed has been working for over a year towards creating a special "Share the Road with Bicyclists" license plate in Missouri.

We have gathered signatures from over 2000 citizens interested in purchasing the plates, held a design competition, and were prepared to apply for the plates by the annual deadline of June 30th, 2008.

Corresponding with the Missouri Department of Revenue about the application this week, we discovered that Missouri's specialized license plate program has been completely suspended due to a federal court ruling [PDF file] earlier this spring.

According to DOR officials, the court ruling will require the Missouri legislature to pass legislation fixing the issues the federal court addressed before any more applications for specialized license plates can be accepted.

This was all a surprise to us--we have been corresponding with DOR officials as late as this spring about the design particulars for the plates. But apparently the ruling came down in late January and it took some time to work out the ramifications for future specialty plate applications.

Since the legislative session for 2008 is already over, that means that it will be 2009 at earliest before applications for any new specialty license plates can be submitted.

As always, when working with any issue dealing with the legislative process (specialty license plates must be approved by the legislature), progress is measure not in days or months, but in years. As with any item on MoBikeFed's Legislative Platform, we take the long-range view and will continue to work with the legislature for as many years as needed to reach our objective.

The good news--there is now plenty of time to sign up to indicate you are interested in purchasing the plates when they become available, and to encourage your friends to do the same!