OLYMPIA, Wash – Soon, drivers won’t see as many temporary license plates on the road as the Washington Department of Licensing says the state’s license plate shortage is ending.
Drivers have had to wait months for new plates as the Department of Corrections was unable to keep up with demand.
Correctional Industries typically produced 7,000 license plates a day. A combination of equipment changes, and COVID-era inmate releases led to a backlog. It was so severe that earlier this year DOL announced that more than half the counties in the state were out of plates.
That led DOL to authorize a change in September, allowing non-embossed plates to be printed.
The embossing process required an extra step involving manual labor, but non-embossed plates can be printed on one machine.
DOL expected the change could clear the backlog within six weeks.
4 News Now checked with DOL Friday, and the agency said Correctional Industries was caught up on standard plates. CI was shifting its focus now to personalized and specialized background plates.
DOL said once the shortage was eliminated, the agency would examine whether non-embossed plates should be standard, as they are in 28 other states.
COPYRIGHT 2024 BY KXLY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.
