Straight Talk From Steve: License Plate Design

How about that new 2023 license plate design? Some like it; most don’t. After Nebraska’s First Lady, Susanne Shore, revealed the new license plate design at a press conference with Gov. Ricketts last Tuesday, the responses that followed on social media were mostly negative. I share that opinion.

The new design does not represent folks in Nebraska. Instead of choosing a design which reflects the geography, culture, history, or natural beauty of the whole state, Gov. Pete Ricketts decided to go with an obscure Roman charioteer taken from the floor of the rotunda in the State Capitol Building. The Roman charioteer is called “the Genius of Creative Energy,” and is supposed to represent the spirit of Nebraska. But we should ask: Does a Roman charioteer represent the spirit of Nebraskans? It appears that the new design was chosen to celebrate the commercial enterprises and innovative business ideas coming out of Nebraska.

Looking beyond the obscure theme of the new license plate, there are plenty of cosmetic reasons for disliking the new design as well. For example, the image of the Roman charioteer is very difficult to see or make out. The blue colors are so opaque that the image doesn’t stand out. In order to see the image of the charioteer, a person has to view it up close. This is important because the new design won’t draw the attention of other motorists, especially those from other states.

Nebraska’s new license plate will likely be ranked as one of the worst license plates in the country. People from other states will likely mistake our license plate as having a plain white background. So, unlike the license plates from other states which beautifully and colorfully represent their states, such as New Mexico’s teal and gold Zia symbol and Hawaii’s rainbow, Nebraska’s license plate will largely go unnoticed and rank as one of the worst license plate designs in the country.

So, why are we getting stuck with this design? The reason is that the people of Nebraska never had a say in the matter. No vote or poll was ever taken to see how Nebraskans really felt about this particular design. Perhaps, this was due to the debacle of 2009 when Colleghumor.com hijacked the online polling process to pick the winning design. Nevertheless, the task of creating new designs was assigned to First Lady Susanne Shore, and the final decision was made by Gov. Pete Ricketts.

Nebraskans will need to get used to this new license plate design because we will be stuck with it for the next ten years. According to Nebraska State Law, Nebraska has to come up with a new license plate design once every six years, that is, until now. Earlier this year State Senator Suzanne Geist of Lincoln introduced LB 1259, which changed the duration of these state issued designs from six years to ten years. Although her bill technically did not pass in the State Legislature, the portion containing the ten-year rule was amended into LB 750, which the Governor signed into law on April 18. So, going forward, Nebraska will get a new license plate design once every ten years.

The good news is that motorists who do not care for the State’s new license plate design will still have plenty of options to choose from. The Nebraska Department of Motor Vehicles is required by law to make available 61 specialty license plates. So, if you don’t like the new design, which will be made available in January 2023, then you can always order a specialty or vanity license plate. This will surely bring in more specialty plate revenue for the state.