Request By:
Mr. David L. Logsdon
Hardin County Court Clerk
P.O. Box 490
Elizabethtown, Kentucky 42701
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
You have requested an opinion of the Attorney General on two questions pertaining to KRS 186.173. This statute was adopted by the 1976 General Assembly and authorizes the issuance of a special license plate for National Guardsmen. Your questions are as follows:
"1. Must this plate only be authorized to a motor vehicle registration bearing the name of the guardsman only, and not a joint name of husband and/or wife?
"2. Must this plate only be authorized to an automobile, and not a motor vehicle which requires a 6,000 pound tag?"
Under regulations adopted by the Department of Transportation the special license plate for National Guardsmen can only be issued for a vehicle of a kind required to be licensed under the provisions of KRS 186.050(1), excluding taxicabs, airport limousines and U-Drive-Its. 601 KAR 9:013(4). This means that any vehicles, such as pick-up trucks or trucks which require a 6,000 pound license, do not qualify to use a National Guardsman plate.
There is no provision either in the statute or in the regulation for issuing a National Guardsman plate on a vehicle which is not solely owned by the National Guardsman.
It is therefore our opinion that the special plate cannot be issued for a vehicle owned by a guardsman and his wife jointly.
The administrative regulation on this subject, 601 KAR 9:013, was enacted by the Department of Transportation on an emergency basis and became effective on January 2, 1977. This emergency regulation will expire in 120 days. However, at the same time the emergency regulation was enacted the Department of Transportation filed the same regulation with the Legislative Research Commission, and if approved by the Legislative Research Commission's Regulations Committee, it will become final in 90 days.