Charter coach companies will not be required to purchase apportioned license plates, thanks to a recent no vote on the International Registration Plan. The proposal would have eliminated the exemption given to charter bus operators that would force them to buy apportioned license plates. The United Motorcoach Association, along with the National Tour Association and Motor Coach Canada, had launched a campaign against the proposal.
In a pre-ballot survey, 50 of the U.S. states and Canadian provinces that are members of IRP- the organization governing vehicle registration of out-of-jurisdiction buses and trucks – approved the change to the exemption, which promoted an official vote. The elimination proposal needed the support of 75 percent of IRP members to be approved; however, the vote failed to reach the support benchmark and was not passed.
“Based on the pre-ballot survey, this proposal was expected to pass easily but for the past month, we’ve lobbied hard on this issue with our partners from the MCC and NTA,” said Victor Parra, UMA president & CEO. “IRP was hoping to get states searching for new sources of revenue to support the elimination of the exemption without thinking about the overall consequences of their decision. We reacted quickly and sent communications to state/provincial directors of tourism, governors and directly to the voting IRP members. Both NTA and MCC helped greatly in this effort. Thankfully we were able to turn this around and the result was enough “no” votes to kill the proposal.”
For more, visit www.uma.org.