[sustran] 14 million USD cool license plate

[Carlosfelipe Pardo]

Hi,

I read about this issue (link below) yesterday in Wall Street Journal. Abu Dhabi has a bidding system for "cool" license plates (like single digit numbers, or specific combinations). They use the 
money to build a hospital for traffic accident victims (of course, could also have been used for other more cause-related measures, such as speed-controling measures, etc).

Link to story: http://www.autounleashed.com/14-million-license-plate-auctioned-in-uae

The article I read is more detailed but I didn't find it online (if anyone finds it, would be great to have the link). I know this is not exactly the Shanghai or 
Singapore plate bidding, but it's related and could be taken into account as a similar version (as long as revenue is properly spent in 
transport-related projects). From my point of view, this is "cooler" than the Shanghai/Singapore ones. Bangkok has something similar (you pay 
more for a cool license plate), but I don't know if it's a bid or market-driven, and what they do with the money... would be nice to find out.

Best regards,

Carlosfelipe Pardo