News

Registry: Green plates are still OK

By Cate Lecuyer
staff writer
Published: December 5, 2008

BEVERLY — A flier circulating in the automotive world is erroneously instructing Massachusetts drivers with green-trimmed license plates to turn them in before the end of the year, or face penalties.

"The Registry does not have any plan to phase out green plates. There is no deadline, no fee," said Ann Dufresne, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles.

The flier says all green-lettered plates are now considered a safety failure, and state inspection agencies will reject them. It also says people must replace them with a red plate on both the front and rear of their car, and that after Jan. 1, the replacement plate is no longer free and will cost $65.

"This is erroneous information," Dufresne said.

She said the Registry is aware of the flier and last week notified all inspection agencies, as well as police, that green plates are, in fact, fine — as long as they're legible from 60 feet away.

The green plates were issued prior to 1987, so in cases where the paint of the numbers is peeling or the reflective white paint on the background has faded, they may not pass inspection. But the same holds true for any license plate.

People can replace their green plates with red plates any time, free, even if they are in good enough condition to still pass inspection.

Dufresne said the fliers started going around about a month ago, and she's received a lot of phone calls about it.

"We think the inspection stations started circulating this," she said. The Registry traced them back to a Midas muffler shop on the North Shore. She said she didn't know which city or town it was in, but workers claimed they saw the information on the Registry's Web site. Dufresne said there was no such information.

"They apologized," she said.

To clear up any misconception, the Registry has posted its replacement policy on its Web site and issued an alert to inspection agencies about "a tremendous amount of inaccurate information regarding the replacement of number plates."

"There's not much more we can do," Dufresne said.

Patrick Sarkis, a manager at American Petroleum on Cabot Street, said he never heard about the rumor until a customer asked about having to replace the green plates. Sarkis checked with a Registry representative who stopped by his shop on a routine visit and was told about the flier.

"Obviously, people are thinking green-and-white plates are gone," he said. "They're not. I did two or three today."