In 1998, the Colorado legislature passed a law designed to standardize license plate design and replace all earlier standard plates with the new style.
Originally, the out-with-the-old mandate was to be implemented by Jan. 1, 2004. The date was slipped back a few times and eventually to July 1 of this very year.
So I was expecting a shiny new plate in the return mail when I sent in my annual renewal last month. Instead, all I got was the usual stamp-sized sticker.
Apparently, this is a legislative “fix” that just sort of fizzled out.
As of now, there’s no formal deadline for replacing the old plates, and “We’re still a ways away,” said Steve Tool, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Revenue.
One of the arguments for replacing the old plates was “to ensure legibility,” as that 1998 law, House Bill 1075, explained it.
After a few years, license plates get dinged in parking mishaps, bleached by the sun and scrubbed by carwash brushes. The letters and numbers fade into the background. The patrolman who pulls over a traffic violator has a hard time reading the license number so he can call it in to the place that tells him whether the vehicle is stolen or might be driven by a wanted chainsaw-murderer.
Law enforcement, not surprisingly, was a major proponent of turning all the old plates into scrap metal or stylish purses or whatever – just get them off the road.
But something like 17 percent of the cars on the road still have the old plates, Tool said. As of July 31, there were more than 4.9 million registered motor vehicles in Colorado, and 850,528 of them still had old-style plates.
“County clerks are reluctant to press the issue, and people are reluctant to get rid of their old plates,” Tool said.
The responsibility for changing the plates got passed down from the legislature to the state revenue department to the county clerks, where it has diffused into a number of different interpretations and policies.
Some counties may require motorists to replace their old plates when they buy a new car, Tool said. Others might not. In my county, Arapahoe, it’s all right for a vehicle owner to hang on to an old plate. “I guess they figured it’s better to pick a different battle,” said the motor vehicle clerk I spoke with.
Maybe that flat slab of mental has a sentimental value, or drivers don’t want to have to memorize a new license-plate number in a world already overwhelmed with numbers.
The new design was introduced in 2000, consisting of three numbers followed by three letters, white-on- green instead of the old green- on-white. It was intended to replace several earlier styles, including three letters followed by three numbers, the crowded three letters followed by four numbers and, from simpler, less populous days, two letters followed by up to four numbers.
But that’s just the standard plates. Coloradans have a ridiculous number of other styles to choose from – 101 in all.
That’s an increase from 90 varieties just four years ago, despite another motor vehicle law that said, beginning this year, the Revenue Department – and the inmates at Cañon City – would stop stamping plates for which there aren’t at least 3,000 buyers a year. Among the plates that aren’t being made anymore are “Collector Tractor,” “Neighborhood Electric Vehicle” and “Recreational Truck.”
And, of course, none of the old standard plates are being made. The new standard has been very popular. But there’s that stubborn 17 percent still clinging to bumpers all over the state. “I don’t think there’s been significant change in that over the years,” Tool said.
Fred Brown (punditfwb@aol.com), retired Capitol Bureau chief for The Denver Post, is also a political analyst for 9News.
