Officials from New Mexico and eight other western states arrived at a solution whereby payment of registration fees would be based on the number of miles driven in each state as a proportion of the total number of miles driven during the year. Moreover, rather than having plates from multiple states, a truck would have a plate from its home state, plus a prorate backing plate, which was a generic blank plate consisting of a grid of sticker boxes separated by raised (embossed) lines. Each other state where the vehicle operated would supply a special prorate sticker to be placed in one of the sticker boxes, and the registration fees in each state would be prorated according to the number of miles driven there, as a proportion of the vehicle’s total miles for the year. The grid appearance of the prorate backing plate gave rise to several nicknames for the tag, including “bingo board” and “waffle plate.”
The stickers applied to the backing plates carried designations as to the type of vehicle licensed. As the technical name for the “truck” or “power unit” pulling a trailer is “tractor” (hence, the term “tractor-trailer”), their stickers were typically imprinted “TRACTOR” or “POWER.” Stickers for trailers and semi-trailers were imprinted “TRAILER.” Sometimes, but not always, the word “PRORATE” was printed on the sticker as well.
See also Prorate Truck & Prorate Trailer, Trailer and Rental Trailer.
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