Residents of Washington state have all become well aware of the issue regarding severe delays in the production of license plates, with many waiting months before finally getting theirs. Now, the Washington Department of Licensing has announced a plan to help combat the issue, with hopes of being able to speed the process back up. According to their reports, with this plan in place, a new production method will be introduced which is expected to fully eliminate the backlog issue by Thanksgiving.

So, what is this new production method the DOL will implement?

According to the Department of Licensing spokesperson, Christine Anthony, the department will begin production of non-embossed plates in order to speed the process up. The production will still take place in the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington; however, the process will stop before they emboss the plates. The embossing process is what make the digits and letters appear raised on the license plate.

The Department of Corrections has spoken on this change as well, given that it is inmates who are responsible for making the plates. A spokesperson for the department stated that, on average, around 9,000 plates are produced in a day. However, when they halt the embossing process, they will be able to produce around 15,000 license plates in one day.

Rather than worry about the new plates, they are hopeful people are just satisfied to begin receiving their plates in timely manner again.

A large reason people are so upset about the delay is they have had to deal with paper license plates with a lot more upkeep than a typical aluminum plate. The state has been requiring paper plates to be renewed every 60 days, as opposed to the annual renewal process that residents have to go through with aluminum plates. Because of the delays in plate manufacturing, most people have been forced to go through the 60 day paper plate renewal process at least once, with some even doing it more than once.

According to Christine Anthony, the backlog of plates is due to the fact that the manufacturing facility inside the prison was shut down for over a year because of supply chain issues. Once they were able to resume production, they had new equipment installed, but not enough inmates to work the line. Essentially, they have been playing catch-up for over a year, but they are hopeful things will pick-up now with the new regulations.