Quebecers eager to buy vanity licence plates ran into some problems on Friday after demand was so high for the new online service, the SAAQ website crashed.

Quebecers were supposed to be able to buy their vanity licence plates online as of Friday, but as thousands swarmed the site, the automobile insurance board ran into technical difficulties.

The matter appeared to be resolved as of Monday, and people were quick to put their orders in.

“At 2 o’clock this afternoon, we had already more than 8,500 vanity plates reserved. It’s a lot of plates for one day. We knew that there was an interest for that, but 8,000 plates day? We were prepared for that. You know that on Friday morning we had some unfortunate technical problems, but we worked on that so that to be sure that this morning at 7:30 that everyone was able to make the transaction,” said Mario Vaillancourt of the SAAQ.

Drivers will now be able to purchase plates between 7:30 a.m. and 11 p.m. Monday to Saturday, and from noon to 11 p.m. on Sunday.

Purchasing a personalized plate will cost $250, and its annual renewal will cost $34.50.

There are several restrictions on the plates: they must be two to seven characters long, cannot have any spaces, cannot include "oo" or "00" unless the word is fewer than five characters, and cannot have a number in the middle of a word.

Registered trademarks are also prohibited, and can be searched in the Canadian Trademarks Database.

“When people will go on this site, they will be sure this is not a company name or an enterprise name,” said Vaillancourt.

Transport Minister Andre Fortin also stressed earlier this month that the plates must be respectful and tasteful.

The opposition Parti Quebecois had complained that the board is allowing citizens to order English-language plates.

They say English plates violate the province's language charter.

The board and the Liberals, however, said vanity plates are private property and therefore can be in the language of the car owner's choice.

Delivery of the vanity plate takes three to six weeks.

- With files from The Canadian Press