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Trees Are Cool, According To New License Plate

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By KEITH MORELLI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 15, 2007

Updated: 11/15/2007 04:45 pm

TAMPA - Joining the fray of causes depicted in specialty license plates is the plight of trees. They join a new plate that cries out to help protect Florida's springs. Oh, and let's not forget the one that could outsell them all: a NASCAR specialty plate that goes on sale this month.

Trees Are Cool is the just-approved specialty plate that goes on sale next year.

"Trees have suffered a fair amount of bad press with the hurricanes of '04 and '05, and we're reeling from that," said Norm Easey, executive director of the Florida Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture, the group that is behind the latest specialty license plate, Trees Are Cool.

"People are cutting down trees now unnecessarily," he said.

The push could reap benefits way beyond the $119,000 — a third of the chapter's 2006 budget — spent to get the license plate idea approved. The plates will go on sale in the fall of next year.

"We've worked on this for a year-and-a-half since we thought up the idea," he said. Most of the income from the plates will go toward public awareness of trees and the training of the chapter's 2,000 members, of which 1,500 are certified arborists.

There is plenty of competition out there as far as specialty license plates go, Easey admitted.

"The new one this year is NASCAR," he said. "How do you compete with NASCAR? Well, we hired a marketing company to help us market the plate. We'll just do what we can and hope for the best."

Trees Are Cool is one of a few plates that will be on the market in the next year, said Ann Nucatola, spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.

Support Our Troops, Corrections Foundation and NASCAR will be on the market within a month, she said/,/ and Protect Florida Springs will be out early next year.

Out of about 50 plates submitted, three to seven are approved each year, she said.

She said she has not heard any complaints about the number of specialty plates on the road.

Law enforcement officers are on top of it and don't feel confused either.

Hillsborough County sheriff's Deputy Dominick DeSiato said all the specialty plates aren't all that confusing.

"I've just gotten used to it," said DeSiato, who rides a motorcycle and keeps track of motorists in Northwest Hillsborough County. "I've found I just have to read down below to see if it says Florida on it or not."

Learning each and every plate is not an option, he said, with 104 plates on the road and more on the way.

"It's impossible," DeSiato said. "There are just too many of them. Every time I see a new one, I have to take a double take to see if it's from Florida."

The biggest problem, he said, is a coupling of unfamiliar specialty plates and license plate protectors that hide the "Florida" written along the bottom.

Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Larry Coggins said troopers have an issue more with license plates being partially concealed more than the variety.

"We want everyone to remember that all tags must be readable," Coggins said in an e-mail this Thursday afternoon, "free from defect or damage and not have a tag frame that conceals the decals or state name, not have a cover over the tag that distorts the tag, and that the tag lights are operable so that the tag can be seen."

In some cases, having specialty tags help law enforcement, he said, like in cases of hit and run, where victims didn't get the tag number, but can recognize the picture on the plate.

Specialty license plates have been around for years, and they can be lucrative for organizations that put them out. Last year, the University of Florida plate toppled the Protect the Panther plate for the No. 1 spot. The panther plate had been the best-selling one for the previous three years, according to the state.

In 2006, University of Florida plates adorned the rears of 90,436 cars, almost 4,000 more than the previous year. The Florida panther plate had nearly 6,000 fewer sales in 2006 than the previous year, falling to 87,806.

Specialty plates each cost $25 extra. In 2006, the plates raised nearly $32 million for their respective causes and universities. Fees paid for professional sports tags go into a statewide professional sports development trust fund and a youth sports fund.

In Florida, just more than 1.5 million specialty plates were sold last year, including the Agricultural Education and Donate Organs, Pass It On plates, which went on sale last year for the first time and sold only one plate each. New plates on the list, Support Home Ownership for All and State of Vision, occupied the 103rd and 104th place on the list but were not on the market last year.

"Trees Are Cool," Nucatola said, "makes 108 specialty plates."

Many of the plates espouse causes. Others go on cars owned by ecology-conscious people. There are Save the Florida Whales, Protect Wild Dolphins, Helping Sea Turtles Survive and Save the Manatee plates.

The bulk are for universities in Florida, ranging from the University of Florida to Florida State, ranked fifth, on down to Clearwater Christian College, which sold 90 plates last year. The University of South Florida was 48th on the list, selling nearly 10,000 plates in 2006.

This year in Hillsborough County, Tampa Bay Buccaneers plates were the biggest sellers, eclipsing the University of Florida plates by more than 4,000. State figures show 10,414 Bucs plates were sold, compared with UF's 6,293. USF has sold 4,237 this year in Hillsborough County. Selling the least here this year was the Palm Beach Atlantic University plate, which is on just six Hillsborough County cars.

Getting an idea for a specialty plate and having it stamped onto a piece of metal and bolted to the back of a car is a long, involved process that isn't cheap. There is a $60,000 application fee that doesn't include an independent survey or lobbyist to push the idea in Tallahassee. Signatures must be obtained from every county, and the state must be convinced that at least 30,000 motorists are interested in buying the plate. Then, there's the long- and short-term marketing plan and the financial analysis, and the design has to be approved.

Ultimately, the plate has to be voted on by the Legislature. If the design is rejected, the $60,000 fee is refunded. The department can yank any specialty plate from the market if there are fewer than 1,000 plates sold for at least 12 consecutive months. Schools are an exception to that rule, though.

In 2002, three plates were pulled from circulation. They were Girl Scouts, Orlando Predators and Tampa Bay Storm.

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760 or kmorelli@tampatrib.com.

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