New license plates benefit 4-H, honor state flower

New specialty license plates featuring the 4-H clover and Washington state flower, the rhododendron, are now available.

Revenue generated from the sale of specialty plates not only goes to the state, but also goes to organizations associated with each plate.

For example, money collected from the sale of the 4-H plate goes toward activities to support the 90,000 Washington boys and girls that participate in 4-H.

And revenue from the state-flower plate generates revenue for garden associations statewide.

Specialty plates cost $40 more than standard plates; renewal costs $30.

Visit the DOL’s website at the links below to learn how to purchase each specialty plate.

4-H Plates

State Flower plates

Nearly 8-thousand WA residents have already signed-up for License Express website

In one month, thousands of Washington residents have already signed-up for the convenience of the state’s new License Express website.

On September 17, the Department of Licensing announced that License Express is a website where residents can securely manage their driver license, ID card, cars, motorcycles, watercraft and trailers.

That’s right, all in one place!

As of October 19, the total number of people who’ve signed-up for the site is 7,988.

To learn more about License Express, check-out the video tour.

Want to join now?  Here’s our direct link to the sign-up page.

Some driver and vehicle fees increasing in October

DOL

OLYMPIA — Several fees related to driver and vehicle licensing charged by the Department of Licensing increased today.

These fee increases, passed by the 2012 State Legislature, are required to continue to fund the operation and maintenance of the roads, streets, bridges, ferries, transit systems, and other services that make up our vital transportation system.

(Please click image below for larger view of fees.)

DOL makes managing driver and vehicle licenses easier

DOL image

OLYMPIA—The Department of Licensing introduced a fast, easy way to manage your driver license and all of your vehicle, trailer and boat licenses in one secure online service called License Express.

This new service allows people to take care of all of the most common DOL license transactions like renewals and address changes. It also makes it easy to take care of many less common tasks like ordering a duplicate driver license or ID card, signing up for email renewal reminders, ordering copies of your driving record and report the sale of vehicles or boats.

“It’s no secret our customers typically dread a trip to a local driver licensing office to wait for service,” Licensing Director Alan Haight said. “License Express is like having a DOL office at home.”

License Express ties together DOL’s most popular online services that, individually, have been used more than 2.5 million times by customers wanting to skip a trip to an office. DOL plans to keep improving this new service over time and adding more features to make it even more useful and save DOL customers more time.

License Express takes advantage of a highly secure login process through the state’s Secure Access Washington service to safeguard personal information.

DOL customers can learn more about this new service and sign up at the DOL website at dol.wa.gov.

Many people taking advantage of email renewal notices

A legislative proposal to encourage the use of email renewal reminders for our state’s cars and trucks to save the state $3.8 million per year is getting a lot of attention in the media. Under this proposal, vehicle owners would be given the options of signing up for free email renewal reminders, paying an additional fee to continue receiving traditional paper vehicle renewal notices, or skipping renewal notices altogether.

Informal online polls and reader comments on news websites indicate many people think the time is right for switching to email renewal notices. The good news is that DOL already offers email renewal reminders. The benefits to signing up for them go well beyond cost savings, and more than 300,000 people have already signed up.

Email renewal notices have a link to DOL’s popular online vehicle tab renewal system. You can open your reminder, click the link, and have your new tabs on their way to your home in a matter of minutes. This means no more writing checks or driving across town. Email renewal reminders also are much more environmentally friendly than the paper notices.

You can sign up all your vehicles (and boats) right now at the DOL website.