Beijing's traffic authority on Thursday announced the suspension of the issue of new license numbers to vehicle owners ending a 10-day spending spree on personalized number plates.
The Beijing Traffic Administration issued a notice saying that registration of the new license numbers was suspended due to technical problems, but did not give a set date its resumption.
Four cities in China, namely Beijing, Tianjin, Hangzhou and Shenzhen, followed each other by allowing car owners to have a free choice of license plate letters and numbers from August 12 onward.
Over 10,000 car owners in Beijing have chosen their own combinations of letters and numbers during the last 10 days. Some waited for 10 hours in a long queue to join the aggressive buying of "personalized letters and numbers."
Although the administration did not give any clear explanation why the registration came to a sudden halt, some suspect that a creative naming of license numbers might be part of the reason.
Since car owners were free to choose any sequence or combination of letters and numbers, except "CHN," there are people who chose "SEX," "911," "WTO," "USA" and so on.
According to Ministry of Public Security rules, the city will resume using the 1992 method of issuing license numbers by computer selection of five numbers, until the new method of registration is resumed.
(Xinhua News Agency August 22, 2002)
