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Weight Distance

This class of plate was introduced about 1980 and has always carried a WD prefix or suffix. Current plates have the words “WEIGHT DISTANCE” embossed in the plate. The vehicles using the plates are almost exclusively very heavy trucks such as dump trucks. The registration fees are based on a formula which multiplies the gross weight rating of the truck times the number of miles driven. The owner must periodically submit a form to the MVD, stating and certifying the actual mileage driven by the vehicle during the applicable reporting period. Weight Distance and Weight Distance Farm Truck plates came about not as a result of an Act of the legislature, but through an administrative decision made by the State Transportation Department regarding vehicles exceeding 26,000 lbs. In October 1979 it was announced that while the Motor Vehicle Division would continue to title such vehicles, the responsibility for annual registration would be transferred to the Motor Transportation Division. Concurrent with this change, the registration certificates issued by the MVD would be replaced by the Cab Cards issued by the MTD, with the latter serving the same purpose. The change was officially effective January 1980, at which time the new Weight Distance and Weight Distance Farm Truck plates replaced the existing plates previously in use on these vehicles. Notwithstanding the January 1980 effective date, a very few 1979 Weight Distance plates are known to have been in use, with some surviving today, none of them known to have serial numbers higher than about 01200. [Deming Headlight, October 31, 1979]

This plate, WD-IR2766, by all appearances a combination of the Weight Distance and International Registration Plan types, has not been positively identified as to its purpose.  It is not described in the MVD publication New Mexico License Plates 1984 Edition, though that publication does show the regular 1983 Weight Distance plate with the embossed “83.” If you have any information on this type of plate, and especially if you have documentation on it, please contact us.

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