There’s a Change Coming to Washington State License Plates

I remember growing up in the '80s when our Washington State license plates changed from the white with green text to what we have now which has Mt. Rainier in the background with blue text. I actually didn't like it so much at first as I loved how basic the plates were but you could tell from a mile away where the state was just by the plate with California being that iconic blue plate or Oregon with their yellow plates.

Well, there's a new change coming to our license plates in Washington.

Are license plates really made in jail?

I don't know about the rest of the country, but here in Washington State the license plates we have on our cars in our area come from Walla Walla State Penitentiary.

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They make them in abundance, already pretty lettered and numbers, stamp them in the embossing press, and send them on their way.

Unfortunately, with so many new cars on the road, it's hard to get them out in a timely manor.

In fact, if you bought a car in the last year or so, you may be like many who are having to use a temporary paper license plate that you have to get renewed every 90 days or so. That's gotta be annoying.

To speed up the process if people getting their plates quicker, they're allowing a new chance to our Washington State license plates.

A slight change in our WA license plates

They're gonna be flat.

That's it.

No embossing.

The art of taking each plate, putting it in the embossing stamp, is all time spent where they could just get the flattened plates out to cars faster.

This is not a new thing for many states. In fact, there's something like 28 states that are already doing this.

Though I think the embossing of the lettering on plates is kinda cool, it's also unnecessary.

Not sure how long this will last but it'll be for a while. And, who knows, maybe it'll never go back.

If your plate is already embossed, no worry, you don't need to exchange it for a flattened one or anything like that, this is just to get these plates out quicker.

King 5 has more on this.