British Columbia Parks License Plates
Odds & Ends!


Googly Eyes Add-on!

People crack me up sometimes! Take the trend that started shortly after the release of the plates in early 2017 and involved the affixing of googly eyes to the bear on the Kermode base. While we are unsure as to how widespread this practice is, it has added some life to the bear, especially, we imagine, when going around corners at high speeds!

Thanks for your service!
With a change of provincial government in 2017, ICBC Chair (and former Liberal Party Cabinet Minister) Barry Penner (bottom-left) was replaced by the incoming New Democratic Party Administration of John Horgan. As a parting gift from ICBC, Penner was presented with a personalised BC Parks plate with his last name as the slogan (bottom-right).

Inspired by this plate we went shopping to see if we too could get a personalised BC Parks plate, possibly with "BCPL8S" as the slogan. We were offered the following options at an Autoplan Agent:

Misleading Fundraising Claims?
For anyone who has followed the growth of specialty plates across North American over the past quarter century knows, one of the more troublesome aspects of these plates is the sometimes huge amounts of money they generate and ensuring that these funds are used as advertised or do not become the subject of out-right fraud. Examples that come to mind include the Tennessee Sportsman's and California Memorial plates whose collected fees were not always used as advertised.
As was commonly reported at the time of their release in January 2017, $33 of the $50 fee was to go to the newly created "Parks Endowment Fund". On March 26, 2017, the CBC ran a story exposing the reality to be something other:
It seems that the actual contribution to the "Parks Endowment Fund" from the sale of each plate is only $15 with the $50 being distributed as follows:
  • $18: new licence plate fee to provincial government;
  • $15: directly to B.C. Parks;
  • $5: ICBC for cost recovery;
  • $7: plate manufacturing, shipping and handling; and
  • $5: broker commission.
Will be interesting to see if this story has any legs and what ICBC's response is going to be. Stay tuned.

Disappearing ink?
Disappearing ink has been a problem for ICBC throughout 2017-18, but this was only in relation to registration decals. Now comes word that some of the BC Parks plates are possibly suffering from the same problem In the example shown at left, it is possible to see the black ink coming off the registration number (as well as the decal)! According to our agent in the field who sent in this photo, "the ink on the letters are still 'wet'. You can rub them off with your finger. I've seen other park plates and normal plates with the same issue. I think there's a bad batch of them or they changed inks".
We are certainly curious to see how widespread this problem is going to be and will be keeping a keen eye (and camera lens) on the roads looking for me of these types of plates! Stay tuned ...

Twitterverse; so quick to condemn!
What more can we say about Twitter that hasn't been said elsewhere? Our favourite is it being a "Vomitorium" and the tweet below (left) pretty much encapsulates that setiment; un-informed, jumping to conclusions, condemning all parties ... Kudos to the ICBC social media team for pointing to "Lady K" that the serial number "RA515T" is completely random and has no hidden meaning (i.e. this fellow is not a RACIST).

BC Parks Vehicles

As can be seen in these photos, BC Parks has registered a number of their fleet vehicles with, naturally ... the BC Parks license plates.

We are not sure the blocks assigned to these vehicles or if each of the different bases were used, but from the examples we have been able to find (i.e. the 2 shown here) it appears the Porteau base in the PW0-00M range is what is currently in use (as of 2019).

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