Fifteen years and a month after 000AAA was handed out to someone in Adair County, we’ve reached Z. There are less than 500,000 combinations left, assuming IOQUV are skipped again. (Use of D in the second position may or may not have been constant.) If the Legislature had been on the ball three years ago, January would have been the perfect time for a new design, but as far as I know we’re going to be stuck with a simple alphanumeric rollover. That raises the question of what we’ll do when (if?) the design does change.
However, the plate I saw had a much more significant issue. The zeroes had a slash through them. It is every bit as aesthetically displeasing as you would image. It’s also completely unnecessary, because even in a switch from 999ZZZ to AAA000, as long as Iowa keeps letters and numbers together there’s no confusion.
It’s 2012, not 1987!
(PS: Southeast Polk, you play it too fast.)