The "Being Street Legal in Sint Maarten" Story

This plate features the Courthouse in the background.

It was an ordinary day.  Just finished hanging the latest Sint Maarten license plate on my Tiki Bar on the back deck.  That makes 8 of them that I have collected since I made my first trip to the island.  Then as I looked over the rest of the plates that were hanging in front of me, I wondered why Sint Maarten seems to make a new plate every year.  So I Googled it and found a link to a recent story in the Daily Herald out of Miami which issues a daily online island edition.  The January 7, 2014 headline said:  2014 Number Plates Available Starting Today - 31,259 plates imported.  

The M license is primarily for residents of the island.

Then the story went on to say that the plates arrived in the country and are ready for motorists to collect starting Tuesday at 8:00 AM.  Motorists had until February 28 to pay their motor vehicle tax as stipulated by law and collect their plate.  If they failed to do so, they would lose the right to the plate and it would be issued to someone else and they would not be able to drive their car.  Valid insurance and inspection cards were needed to get the plate.  Out of the total number, 1000 are for motorbikes.  

One of my favorites that features Mullet Bay on it.

Those with plates with a prefix letter of M, P, SXM, MR (Ministers), and PAR (Parlia- ment) pay a fee of about $12.00 US dollars (at least that's how I figure it to be) and those with R (rental), Taxis, BUS, G (group) and T (tour buses) pay approximately $150.00 US dollars.  Vehicles with a V or Z plate, which I assume are trucks, will pay about $715.00 US dollars and motorbikes with an MF plate will pay about $110.00 US dollars and mopeds pay $28.00 US dollars.  

This plate must have come from a truck or heavy vehicle.

Then I started to think how expensive it must be to drive on the island and why do they make new plates every year when they could use the same plates over again and just put a new sticker on them as we do in Pennsylvania and I'm sure quite a few other states.  I knew my question could probably be answered by the online forum Travel Talk Online (TTOL) so I posed it to the readers and within minutes I had a few answers.  One response from an unregistered reader stated that: Certain well connected people make money on the new plates each year.    Another said: They charge $12 every year just for new plates that cost maybe $1.00, while another asked a resident if they remember when they used to write the license number on the deck lid with a magic marker?  

This plate features a map of Sint Maarten.

The Admin- istrator of TTOL responded by saying:  I guess we're talking about the Dutch side?  I was thinking that they did try to use stickers a couple of years ago.  Is that what happened ...  people stole them?  So, it sounds as if someone on the island is making some big bucks, according to the many thoughts I was offered.  

Current plate for the car I rented this year on Sint Maarten.  

My guess ....... could they be using the money for street repairs.  Since there is only 1 traffic light on the Dutch side, they certainly aren't using it to replace traffic lights.  And come to think of it, the French side of the island or the St. Martin side doesn't replace their plates very often, if I remember correctly.  At least I can find a new plate yearly if I care to add a plate a year to my Tiki Bar collection.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.