Bleg to my fellow Texans

Our state is making a new license plate design, to accompany the rollout of the new 7-digit license plate format. (Bah.)

The state has decided to let the citizenry vote for which plate design is used next. Good idea, right?

Well, sort of.

I'm all for democracy. I think that creating a work that is generally pleasing to the eye of the citizenry is pretty cool.

But here's the thing:

Most people are going to pick the pretty ones, without regard to the function of the plate.

What's the function of a license plate?

Answer: To identify a given vehicle for administrative and emergency purposes.

Now, some of y'all might think "Screw it-- if the cops or the robot revenuers can't read my plate, that's just so much the better." But a license plate allows not just cops, but the general public at large to read a vehicle's identifying numbers, and to report that the vehicle was at a specific time at a specific place, performing a specific action. Hit and run? Get the plate number. Robbery? Get the plate number. Road rage? Plate number. DWI running people off the road? Ditto.

Plates are hard enough to read as it is. Road grime, soot, spattered asphalt, etc all make them hard to read from 50 feet away on a highway while driving at highway speeds, and still taking due caution to drive safely yourself. That's one reason why the state requires that the plate be kept clean. But when we remove the high-contrast of black on white, the plate starts off being harder to read.

I ask you, gentle reader, to help me out: go to the Texas Department of Transportation License Plate e-Vote Page*, and vote for "Traditional Texas:"

Classic. State of issuance is easy to read (more important than you might think, with multiple plate designs from 50 states, other territories, Canadian provinces, and Mexican states), high contrast, not overly busy, with the Texas Lone Star on the bottom. Superb.

Better than the current plate, in my opinion, which is listed as "My Texas."

I love bluebonnets, and think that our state flower is a wonderful representation of this great Lone Star State. But we don't need muted fields of them behind our letters. First, bluebonnets should never be muted in their colors. Secondly, it takes what should be white, and makes it the color of lead. Dumb. Please do not vote for "Natural Texas:"

While I find "Lone Star Texas" to be visually pleasing, it's still too busy for a license plate, and should be thrown out:
And while the contrast is okay with "New Texas," the design is horrid. Reminds me of a banner you'd see at a Gay Pride parade (not that there's anything wrong with that) during the Bicentennial. Ugh:

Yes, a secondary function of our license plates can be to show our state pride, but the foremost reason that we muddle with the sleek lines of beautiful cars is to identify them. Keep in mind that the number one cause of unnatural death and injury is by automobile. You, as a citizen, benefit when we can read the blasted things. And I don't have to tailgate your car as much when I'm running your license plate. And that's a Good Thing.

Thanks in advance.

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*Note: two votes per household, and it doesn't seem to care whether you live in Texas or not.