Salt Lake Telegram | 1939-05-19 | Page 15 | License Prefix Proposal Gets More Support

LICENSE PREFIX PROPOSAL GETS MORE SUPP0RT State Tax Commission Rather Cool Toward Car Tag Plan More support for a proposal to use letter prefixes on Utah automobile automo-bile license plates came Friday, this time from a consultant of the National Na-tional Safety council, who has observed ob-served the plan In operation In numerouabtherstates. Ha Is Kirlc A. Kerf an of Chicago, state administrative consultant and statistician for the council, who came here to confer on the proposed new stats traffic safety organisation. organisa-tion. "There Is no question as to advantages ad-vantages of the system," hs said. "It keeps down the number of digits on a license plats and use of letters to designats ths county In which a car Is registered is of valua." Cool Toward Plan 8tats tax commission members were rather cool toward the plan, at least as to using ths system to Identify Iden-tify counties. The commission, charged with administering ad-ministering motor vehicle registration, registra-tion, is expected to discuss the proposal pro-posal after the return Saturday of J. Will Knight, a member, from a conference of the National Association Associa-tion of Motor Vehicle Administrators Administra-tors st San Francisco. H. P. Leathern, commissioner, said the board Is considering adoption or a plan to uss prefixes to reduce the number of digits to not more than five, but not necessarily to identify counties. Irwin Arnovitx, commission chairman, chair-man, said ths plan would be adopted If the public wants it Explains Views "Ws do not feel it would be very advantageous to use prefixes for counties," hs said. "Now plates are issued by the commission. Counties might want to issue their own plates and it would be difficult to obtain registration Information we now get by centralization.' Mr. Leatham said ths plan would bs more costly than ths present one because, not knowing how many plates would be needed for each county, surpluses would hsvs to be kept He said he saw no "big advantage ad-vantage for enforcement" Several Utah peace officers hsve contended enforcement would be aided. The commission has power to institute in-stitute such a system if distribution is msde by the commission, not counties, without amendments to the law, Mr. Leatham ssld. Mr. Keegan expressed an opinion any extra cost would bs overcome by advantages of ths plan and that over a period of time accurate estimates esti-mates could be obtained of the number num-ber of plates needed for each county. ,