I visited Colorado recently, and as you might expect, I saw quite a few Colorado license plates. Including the rental car plate...
It occurred to me that I kind of like their plate. The mountain backdrop...it just looks right. Represents the state well, is somewhat majestic, fits in well with the lettering.
I thought, "maybe Colorado has the best license plate in the US."
But then I saw an Alabama plate today, and thought, that one is not bad either.
I wonder if they are actually referencing the Lynard Skynard song (if so, a little tacky), but the graphics looked good on the car I saw. (Note this isn't a real plate, but some kind of sample I found online. As a side note, does anyone have a license plate of all zeroes?)
So I decided after viewing these plates it was time to look up license plates and see which ones were best.
I don't know if there is a definitive winner, but here are the contenders:
They apparently do not use this anymore, but the old Kansas plates were actually shaped like Kansas.
The wave on this Rhode Island plate is an effective design.
The award for plainest plate has to go to Delaware.
Of course later on they tried to jazz it up by adding something. Maybe a product they make, or a geographical feature....
This kind of makes Delaware seem like a little kid bragging about being first in line. Would be funny if whoever is the second place state put "The Second State" on their plate.
Speaking of first and last, Hawaii could have put "The Last State" (or is it Alaska?) However, they did something much cooler.
It doesn't say "The Aloah State." Just "Aloah." Very simple, like you are saying hello to everyone on the road. (Or goodbye, right?)
Of course later on they changed it to "Aloah State," which is unfortunate. However they did add a cool rainbow.
Perhaps the oddest slogan is Idaho.
And of course, the most frightening is New Hampshire's. Until 1970, they just had a plain old license plate. However in 1971, they added "Live Free or Die" to the plate. Paraphrasing George Carlin, any state where they mention death on the license plate is probably one to avoid.
Of course that is offset if you add in a message about ice cream. (And apologies to whatever "23RE" is. This picture was too cool to pass up.)
