As people have rushed to Arizona in the past decade like water to a drain, the state has faced problems familiar to bigger states – crowded schools, urban sprawl and jammed freeways.
Now comes another big-state headache: too few digits on its license plates.
The increase in vehicles has exhausted the 10.6 million or so combinations of characters on the state's six-digit plates, said Cydney DeModica, a spokeswoman for the state's motor vehicle division.
So Arizona is joining California, New York and other more populous states in adding a seventh digit. The extra digit allows for 106.48 million possible combinations – three letters followed by four numbers – which should accommodate a growing population through 2040, DeModica said.
Arizona, with a population of 6,338,775 in 2007, has been one of the two fastest-growing states in the nation since 2004, according to the census. There are 6.7 million vehicles registered in the state, up from 4.7 million in 2002. Numbers are not recycled once issued, DeModica said.
The first plate of the new batch, AAA-0001, arrived in Tucson in mid-January, DeModica said.
