It could be a question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire: Which of the following admonitions can be found on a Florida license plate? (A.) Share the road (B.) Invest in children (C.) Protect wild dolphins (D.) Go fishing.

Actually, all four are among the 50 specialty plates sold in the state. Bike riders, child advocates, environmentalists and fishermen have their own plates, as do sports teams, colleges and even farmers. A few are popular; most aren't. For example, 369,215 people were willing to pay extra for a Protect the Panther plate, but only 11,124 people have coughed up the extra $25 for a Florida Panther (hockey team) plate.

The choices have grown so diverse, even obscure, and the paperwork so complicated that the program isn't working the way it should, according to a report by the state auditor general.

The purported reason for specialty plates is to raise money for worthy causes. But even when that effort is successful, the money isn't always available on a timely basis and is sometimes misspent, the auditor reported.

In June, $1-million that had been collected eight months earlier still had not been distributed to the appropriate state agencies or charities. The blame, apparently, is incompatibility between local and state computer systems. Sometimes when the recipient gets the money, it is not spent correctly. An example: Florida law requires 85 percent of fees collected on Florida panther (the endangered species) plates to be used for panthers. The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, however, transferred more than $1.2-million of the money to uses that could not be verified as panther-related.

It also appears that some organizations didn't follow the rules when creating a new plate. The law requires a petition by 10,000 state residents who intend to purchase the plate and an analysis of anticipated revenues and expenditures. Paperwork for five plates was unavailable or destroyed, petitions for four plates were missing the required information and two plates were issued without the necessary financial analysis.

Most troubling is that as the number of specialty plates is growing, the interest in them is on the decline. In 1996, when 30 specialty plates were available, 15 percent of car owners purchased one. In 1999, with 45 plates to choose from, owner interest dropped to 10 percent. At least eight plates -- including those for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Lightning and Storm -- appear unlikely to meet the statutory obligation to sell 8,000 plates by the fifth year of sales.

Specialty plates are a fad that has, for the most part, outlived its appeal. Created to honor the astronauts killed in the Challenger explosion, the program has gotten out of hand, as the auditor general noted. There is little proof that the recipient agencies have greatly prospered. And the practical purpose for license plates, to allow law enforcement officers to identify vehicles, is actually undermined by the ornate and varied plates.

The auditor general has given the Legislature some good advice that it should act upon: Make it more difficult to create new plates and start getting rid of those plates that few Floridians want on their cars.

We would go even further. Stop creating new specialty plates and start phasing out all existing ones so that one day, the rear ends of all Florida cars simply proclaim this the Sunshine State.

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