Utah Needs a New License Plate

I love to travel. I love going someplace new -- learning history, experiencing the unique character of someplace different than my hometown. When I was young, in the dark ages before portable DVD players and books on CD, we would play the license plate game on family road trips to see how many unique states we could collect on our list. Getting a Canadian plate was a bonus. I still play the license plate game with my children when we travel to places like Glacier National Park or the north rim of the Grand Canyon. It's interesting to me to see how far people will travel.

License plates have changed a lot in the last few years. Colorado always had the distinctive green and white license plates with the Rockies on them. Wyoming has had their yellow plates with a brown cowboy on a bronco. I remember the old black and white Utah plates, precursor to the Ski Utah plate or the Delicate Arch plate. Most of the license plate changes have been really fun. I love the newer Arizona plates with the purple saguaro and mesa skyline at the bottom. And I think my favorite is the New Mexico license plate that has a very simple design of a turquoise background and a Native American sun symbol in yellow and red in the middle and bold yellow numbers and letters. It makes me want to go to New Mexico.

Even though I don't have plans for any kind of a road trip right now, I still watch license plates on my errands around town and feel that wanderlust to go visit somewhere else. I'd love to go see more of Arizona and New Mexico. Someday I want to see more of Texas than the sprawling Dallas airport. Same goes for New York (I've only ever been to JFK airport...where I watch the U.N.-like tarmac for how many different countries and airlines I can spot...and wish I could go to). I get excited every time I see an Alaska plate as I am driving up and down the county. Doesn't an Alaska roadtrip sound fascinating?

But I have to confess. I can't stand the newer Utah plates with the skier on them. It has nothing to do with the ski industry, even though I'm not a skier. It has everything to do with the stupid copycat color scheme. Has anyone else noticed that the Utah plates look an awful lot like the red, white, and blue Idaho plates? Both plates have a red band across the top of the plate and a blue and white design below. Utah's design is so indistinct and busy it's hard to tell someone is skiing. It certainly doesn't make me want to visit my own state. Frankly, the Idaho plate looks more unique, easily understood, and has cleaner lines than Utah's. Idaho did the color scheme first and they did it better. If we're going to put a skier on our plates, let's go back to the old Ski Utah plate. Or let's put something on there featuring the very cool 2000 Winter Games logo.

Come on Utah License Plate Designer People. Give us a more than a copycat plate. Have a series that show off our different state parks and national monuments/parks. Maybe something that features our Native American cultures. Or our scenic byways? Or the Utah Shakespeare Festival? There is so much scope for imagination here that we shouldn't have to settle for mimicking our good neighbors to the north. And ditch the nonsensical "Life Elevated" motto while you're at it.

I'll step away from my soap box now.