TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

'Trees Are Cool' Plates Will Sprout Up Next Fall

ADVERTISEMENT

By KEITH MORELLI, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 18, 2007

TAMPA - Joining the cacophony of causes on specialty license plates is the plight of trees. It will follow one new plate that seeks help protecting Florida's springs and another that could outsell them all: a NASCAR tag goes on sale this month.

"Trees are Cool" emerges next fall.

"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 behind the effort.

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

The push could reap benefits beyond the $119,000 the group spent to get the license plate idea approved.

"We've worked on this for a year and a half since we thought up the idea," Easey 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.

They faced plenty of competition in the campaign to win an official plate.

"The new one this year is NASCAR," Easey 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."

3 To 7 Tags Approved Each Year

Trees are Cool is one of a few plates that will be new 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 sale 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, Nucatola said.

How many is too many? Florida hasn't reached that point yet, judging by complaints. Nucatola hasn't heard any and law enforcement officers, who spend a lot of time looking at plates, are on top of the changes.

"I've just gotten used to it," said Hillsborough County sheriff's Deputy Dominick 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 combination of unfamiliar specialty plates and plate protectors that hide the "Florida" along the top.

Concealment is a bigger issue than variety for troopers, said Florida Highway Patrol spokesman Larry Coggins.

"We want everyone to remember that all tags must be readable, 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," Coggins said in an e-mail.

In some cases, specialty tags help law enforcement, Coggins said, because witnesses or victims who can't recall a series of letters or numbers might remember which specialty plate they saw.

$32 Million Raised In 2006

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 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.

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.

Specialty plates cost $25 extra. In 2006, the plates raised nearly $32 million for 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.

The state can yank any specialty plate from the market if fewer than 1,000 are sold over 12 consecutive months. Schools are an exception to that rule, though. In 2002, three plates were pulled: Girl Scouts, Orlando Predators and Tampa Bay Storm.

New plates, "Support Home Ownership for All" and "State of Vision," occupy the bottom of the list at 103 and 104 but were not on the market last year.

Trees are Cool, Nucatola said, will make it 108 Florida specialty plates.

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

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT