Car Registrations

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 259, 23 January 1928, Page 8

Car Registrations

BROWN AND WHITE PLATES Licensing for Fourteen Months OF all the mad and merry months in all the glad New Year,. March, for the motorist, is the maddest and the merriest. It is the hectic season set apart for the relicensing of cars, when motorists, having overlooked the fact that delay could have been saved by registering in February, clamour in long queues for their new licences and new number-plates.

TyHEN the present system of licensing was introduced, only the brief weeks of March were set aside for the annual carnival of registration.

' Such were the inevitable delays, difficulties and confusion that last year the Government, of its charity, bracketed February with March, so that motorists had practically nine weeks in which to complete the required formalities. There entered, un

happily, the manifold weakneses of human nature. It has been the habit of motorists to aggravate the confusion by delaying registration until the last possible moment. This year the re-licensing period will again open on February 1, and the responsible authorities, waiting in prayerful anticipation, are earnestly hoping that motorists will assist their arduous work by applying early, a course which will save the time of both the officials and the applicants. The processes involved have been modified since last year. When the system was introduced it was placed in the hands of a Government department without previous experience in the class of work involved, and there was a series of initial trials which only familiarity could eliminate.

Hitherto the March registrations have coincided with the general annual accounting of the money-order office, and the result has been not so much a flood as a positive deluge of work, taking the accounts branch many

weary months to wade through. To avoid this the period covered by registrations in the future will be from May to May, instead of from March to March, and the necessary adjustment will be made this year by extending the period of the licences to May 31, 1929. a proportionately heavier fee being payable, as a matter of course, to an administration that lias never specialised in philanthropy. The schedule of fees was subjceted to further adjustments by Act. of Parliament last session. Motor-cars and motor-cycles pay the same, £2 6s Sd and 11s 8d respectively, which sums cover registration for fourteen months, but do not include the 2s 6d payable for new number-plates. Bus and truck fees have been reduced, buses from £5 to £3 a year, and truck fees, where the truck is of more than one-ton capacity, from £3 to £2 a year. Dealers this year are governed by a new arrangement that they will probably welcome. Demonstration plates hitherto issued for 10s and 5s will now be issued for a full year on payment of £2 for cars and 10s for motor-cycles. These may be attached to any car used in the general way of business, a provision which practically abolishes the restrictions hitherto found so irksome. BROWN AND WHITE Auckland’s consignment of the new plates, which proffer-a tasteful colourscheme in brown and white, has arrived at the General Post Office. The numbers run from 1 to 24,800, and some of the major distributions are as follow: City, 1 to 15,00<); Avondale, 15,001 to 15,100; Ellerslie, 15,201 to 15,300; Takapuna, 15,401 to 15,500; Pukekohe, 16,501 to 17,200. Whangarei, 17,201 to 18,500; Onehunga, 18,501 to 18,800; Devonport, 23,561 to 23,750.

Since last March the following suburban registration offices have been closed down: Newmarket, Remuera, Epsom, Parnell, Kingsland, Grey Lynn, Ponsonby, Newton, Symonds Street, Dominion Road, and Mount Eden. Those whose cars were licensed from these offices will be required to present themselves at the city office, in Wellesley Street, for their impending registration. Following the usual practice, the money-order office will take charge of the re-licensing, but the work will be carried out from the rear portion of the Wellesley Street Post Offic,e, and not from the main office. Arrangements for the reinforcement of the staff have been made, and as many as 20 extra men, from other departments, will be introduced progressively as the pressure becomes apparent. Those summoned annually to the work have already handled plates coloured green and white, black and white, and black and orange. This year’s plates. New Zealand-made, with white lettering on a chocolate ground, will represent, the fourth colour-scheme devised for their delight.