Wisconsin May Drop Registration Stickers

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle has proposed eliminating vehicle registration stickers — you know, the ones the Department of Motor Vehicles sends yearly and motorists affix to their license plates. He also proposed reducing the number of license plates required on a vehicle to just one.

What gives, you wonder?

First of all, like many states, Wisconsin has a budget crunch, and doing away with the stickers would save the state $532,000 over two years in printing and distribution costs. Mandating only one license plate per car would save $795,000. Car owners would still have to pay registration fees, they just wouldn't get a sticker for their money.

Furthermore, while most law enforcement departments in the state oppose losing the sticker, the one police department that deals with a major metropolitan area — the Milwaukee PD — strongly supports it. That's because it has to deal with vehicle-sticker theft, which is more notorious in that city than either shoplifting or pick-pocketing. People steal the stickers, then attach them to unregistered or stolen cars. There were 4,951 reported thefts last year.

Doyle’s Budget Would Eliminate Vehicle Registration Stickers (Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel)

Comments

They stole my entire license plate to get the sticker.
The cop educated me. "Attach the sticker, then cut it diagonally into 4 pieces", he said.

In New York the registration sticker is placed on the lower left of the windshield, next to the inspection sticker - inside the car. It's impossible to get off in one piece. You need a scraper when you replace it.

The sticker also contains a lot of info on the car - make, model, year, color, vin, etc. That way, it's hard to even use a NEW stolen one on any car.

While I don't have any idea about Wisconsin, NY now has 2 year registrations - transferable by the owner to a new car if desired. That cuts down on cost for DMV and lessens renewal hassles for owners.

I'm a fan of this, especially for the single license plate. I never understood why some states had to have two and others didn't.

Texas requires both a annual registration and inspection decal affixed to the lower inside left side of the windshield. This did away with sticker theft off the rear plate. Texas has considered doing away with the front plate also, but no action has been taken so far.

Their stickers don't have the plate numbers printed on them?

The front license plate requirement is just stupid. Wisconsin would do well to join the 20 states that only issue 1 license plate (rear) per passenger car registration.