Goodbye Mr. Black - I'll miss you.

Sometimes, something happens in China that really irks me. Ok, well, maybe a bit more often than “sometimes”… 3 days ago, the Ministry of Public Safety, via relevant news outlets and traffic management bureaus, announced an overhaul of the license plate system (specifically, enhancements to the 1992 standard that was running the risk of running out of available plates - at least here in Beijing). Um, o.k… so? Well, long story short, one of the new provisions is they are phasing out the black plates for foreign-owned vehicles. We will need to swap our plates for the “normal” ugly blue plates that is given to anyone. :-( Remember, Foreigners were lucky and had much sexier black license plates, instead of the boring blue plates that everyone else has! Information is a bit hazy (as my Chinese character recognition isn’t the greatest)… Let’s keep an eye on the Wikipedia article for developments. And here’s the Beijing Traffic Bureau announcement. Now, officially, normal foreigners (i.e. not diplomats) aren’t given any special privileges on the road. Now, for the 4.5 years I’ve been driving, let’s just say I’ve had only one parking ticket (and that was 3 years 7 months ago - EVERY car on the road was ticketed, so I guess the cop was just being “fair”). Seriously… Will having a blue plate change anything? Man, I hope not! As my friend Tom pointed out, most likely the implementation of the new license plate policies won’t coincide with the police sporting a sudden proficiency in the English language.