Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Blue plate special

Two years ago, the state issued a license plate recall to get old, faded plates off the road.

When motorists received their new plates they were surprised to see red letters and numbers instead of blue, which has been the traditional color since, well, forever.

The DMV said red would help differentiate the new plates, and it said the red paint would be easier to read after fading.

On Tuesday the DMV reversed course. New plates will once again be in blue.

"We've been listening to folks," said Marge Howell, a DMV spokeswoman. "The decision was made to go back to blue because we think it's easier to read. That may just be a perception. But after listening to people and law enforcement, that was the consensus."

The state still has 1 million red plates left to distribute. The first blue plates won't show up until October, Howell said.

Red-plate owners can get a blue plate if they want. When they renew their registration, they can get a blue plate for free. At any other time, they'll have to pay for a new plate.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree that the dark blue is easier to read. I guess 2 years of pulling the oldest blue plates out of circulation will eliminate the chance of duplicates when they get back to the beginning of the alphabet.

Anonymous said...

When will the NCDMV join the 21st century when it comes to license plates? The current design has been around since the EARLY 80's with the only changes made being the number of digits in the plate number. While the DMV has addded specialty plates, does it really cost that much to change the overall design?

Anonymous said...

I agree with 4:38. This design is old and boring. Let Ohio have it.

Anonymous said...

I agree that the NC license plate could use some freshening up. The Georgia and the new SC plates look a lot better than ours and project a much better image of their states. NC government doesn't have a track record of being very innovative, you can't even pay with a debit or credit card at the DMV.

Anonymous said...

I heard from someone that the other reason for red was that all those NC State grads in Raleigh thought it would be cool to change the letters to State Red, I had a plate from the late 80's still that the blue letters were still in good shape, only the white paint had flaked or faded.

cparsons said...

I am so glad they are going back to blue numbers and letters...I didn't like the looks of the red ones at all!

Anonymous said...

LoL y'all have missed the other half of the story.

Order a special plate (mine is a firefighter rescue squad) and SHOCKER!

The new plates are not embossed, yep yep that's right they may be blue but they are flat as a sheet of paper, $68 for something I could print up on my office computer!

I'm thinking about asking for a refund.

Anonymous said...

It's a license plate people!! As you can tell the DMV has already decided on the change of the color. This just goes to show you how you can't please everyone. Pick your battles and quit whining about the design of a license plate you can't even see on your own car. Focus on more important things. This is not a huge deal, but we have "artists" who wants a new design and I especially love the "cheap @ss" that wants to print his plate on his computer. Ha! That's what is wrong with our world today, everyone whining and complaining. It's quite humorous!!

Anonymous said...

Cedar, there was an article yesterday (not in the Observer for some reason) that NCDOT has decided to give up the flat plates and go back to embossed.