Blackout license plates to soon be available for North Dakota drivers starting next week
FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) — North Dakota will soon be one of seven states that will allow drivers to obtain a blackout license plate. The decision comes after Governor Kelly Armstrong signed off on legislation earlier this year.
“Senator Roers introduced a bill, 2133, that allows us to create this new blackout plate. So, we’ve got a lot of questions and a lot of phone calls on when this will be available. And we’re happy to say that our team has worked extremely hard to get it all ready to go starting next Friday, August 1st,” said Brad Schaffer, Director of Driver and Vehicle Services for NDDOT.
The blackout license plates will feature a solid black background with crisp white lettering. The plates will be available for most vehicles, including light trucks and motorcycles.
“They actually harken back to like the early days of automobiles. When license plates used to be kind of like a standard color like black and white. We used to have black and white plates a long time ago here in North Dakota, but they haven’t been around for many many years. And so it’s just a new license plate that’s being offered to the residents of North Dakota that have motor vehicles,” said North Dakota Highway Patrol Captain Bryan Niewind.
Minnesota started distribution of blackout license plates last year, with over 250,000 plates sold out of an estimated 160,000 plates. Over the next two years, it’s estimated the plates will bring in an additional $2.9 million.
“So we might be just a little low, because we don’t know exactly how many people will be coming in, but we know it’s going to be a decent number. And all that money, the really good thing is, all the money goes then to the roads here in North Dakota. And it goes into the highway tax distribution fund,” said Schaffer.
While the license plates will be much darker compared to the regular offered license plate, Niewind states he does not see that as an issue for the officers.
“There really is no concern for us. I think it’s going to be a nice addition for our traveling public out there to have something different than what they normally have right now. If you think about North Dakota, all of our license plates look the same. This is just going to be a little bit of a change for the traveling public out there to have something that looks a little bit different,” said Niewind.
