A man in Jieyang, Guangdong province has spent 3.2 million RMB ($460,000) for the vanity license plate "Yue V99999." That price breaks the previous record, set by vanity plate "Yue V88888," which sold for 2.5 million RMB ($360,000) in 2014. Normally, license plate applications cost about 380 RMB.
The man who bought the plate said he paid the huge amount because he liked the number, and it was worth the price. However, the sale has already created a storm of comments online, with some arguing that such auctions unfairly favor the wealthy, as only rich people can obtain "lucky" numbers. Some believe that license plate numbers should be assigned randomly.
Questions have also been raised about how income from the auction will be used.
Guangdong is the first province in the country to issue a law regulating the use of such funds. According to the ruling, funds brought in by license plate auctions must be spent on infrastructure and the prevention of traffic accidents. However, the specific use of the income has not been released.
Several other provinces in China have followed suit, adopting Guangdong's decision to use the funds for road construction. Social funding for traffic accident prevention in Guangdong exceeded 2 billion RMB by the end of 2015. However, only about 100,000 RMB of that sum was actually used in 2014, according to Wang Jian, secretary-general of a foundation for road safety in Guangdong province.
Wang added that the distribution of the funds requires a complicated procedure, and that there is no professional personnel tasked with distributing the money. Applications are dealt with by traffic police as a part-time job, he said.
