Green Mountain License Plates Could Return To Colorado

A proposed bill would swap the color scheme of Colorado license plates, reverting back to what they used to be 20 years ago.

The color change, reverting back to green mountains and white sky, would begin on January 1, 2021, according to the new bill.

Sen. Kevin Priola of Henderson plans to bring forth the bill when the general assembly reconvenes in nine weeks. The main reason for the change is actually for safety. Changing the colors of the plates to have green mountains and white skies could fix the concerns of the green letters fading into the white mountains on today's plates, which makes it more difficult for automatic plate scanners and officers to read.

In an article in the Denver Post, Priola also mentioned incidents such as AMBER Alerts, where quickly finding and identifying license plates are crucial. Interestingly enough, the green mountains with white lettering was around for more than 20 years before the switch in 1999, when the Governor Bill Owens lobbied for green lettering on white mountains because he said it would make the plates easier to read.