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Low sales may be due to logo.
UCLA license plate may be up for redesign
The UCLA Alumni Association is looking to redesign the UCLA license plate in light of its low popularity. Sales have risen over the last five years, but only 503 were sold in 2001.
Though one in 147 Californians has a UCLA degree and despite the large amount of UCLA apparel sold, the Bruin license plates are not a high commodity.
“Sooner or later we will deplete remaining plates and hopefully we will be able to redesign it to make it more visible,” said Keith Brandt, assistant vice chancellor and executive director of alumni relations.
Brandt sees low sales as a reaction to the undesirability of the logo design. There are currently 3,874 UCLA plates on the roads, making the UCLA plate the least popular of all commemorative and special interest plates, according to California Department of Motor Vehicles press aide Armando Botello.
The current design of UCLA plates displays a yellow silhouette of a Bruin with a UCLA written in blue below. The remaining area of the plate is for a six or less figure license plate number
The proceeds from the sales go directly to the Alumni Association Transfer Scholarship fund. Brant said transfer scholarships are difficult to raise money for otherwise.
The California Vehicle Code states that any academic institution accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges may have a license plate created for their school if they have 5,000 applications.
Production of the UCLA plate began in 1993. Although the Alumni Association did not meet the minimum number of applications required by law, the DMV made an exception because they were the first college to attempt to implement the program, according to Brandt.
The Alumni Association has taken no action to begin production of a new plate, and it plans to continue marketing the existing plate.
The UCLA plate was temporarily unavailable earlier this year as a result of a DMV error, Brandt said. While special interest license plates such as the California Fire Fighters, Prisoner of War, and Coastal Commission must meet a yearly quota of 7,500 total licenses to remain in existence, UCLA’s status as a collegiate plate makes it accountable to different legislation that prescribes no yearly quota.
According to the DMV, other plates such as the Ronald Reagan commemorative plate never made it past the drawing board due to lack of demand. In other states such as Florida, collegiate license plates are more popular, Brant said. University of Florida and Florida State University are among the top selling plates in that state.
For now the UCLA Bruin license plate, which is the only collegiate plate available in California, will continue to be available. A link for applications is available on the UCLA Alumni Association Web site. Only time, and sales, will tell when the current Bruin plate will go extinct.
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