On returning from India, I was surprised to find that all the Guanajuato State placas (license plates) had been changed to rather stylish blue-and-white ones. The background of the new design features the image of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a leader of Mexico’s independence movement, adding a historical, patriotic note.

I never had any love for the old plates. The pumpkin and plum color scheme could have been chosen only by a bureaucrat. The design was bluntly functional. In my view, they were truly ugly.

This wholesale change in plates must have been for reasons other than esthetics. If a different look had been the only goal, new ones could have been phased in over time.

A lot of people were being inconvenienced by the new policy. Within a narrow time window, every vehicle owner would have to trek to the state fiscal building to trade in their old plates. If a government is going to do something like this to its constituency, it had better have a good reason.

The number of license plates involved is astonishing. In front of the fiscal office, workers load thousands of obsolete plates into a stakebed truck. Made of aluminum, they’re destined for the recycler.

Each plate had been sheared in two before being taken from the fiscal office, this to prevent theft and re-use. Old ones are valuable because authorities cite parking violations by impounding plates. A few people get around paying fines by putting stolen plates on their cars. A guy double-parks, the cops remove the plates, the driver installs another pair and goes on with his business, unperturbed.

Why did the state replace all the plates? A friend told me that it’s the government’s way of bringing all car owners back into the fold. Some people don’t bother to renew registrations. Their fees pile up unpaid for years. Others don’t redeem plates that were removed for parking violations. A couple of years ago while paying a parking ticket, I peered into the depths of a back room in the police station where I saw hundreds of plates stacked vertically on shelves—the accumulation of many years.

Obviously a large number of registration fees went uncollected. No effective mechanism existed enabling police to compel registration. Dealing with those without license plates, trasitos had but two options: tow cars to the impound yard or ignore them. San Miguel police have only one tow truck, and nowhere near enough officers or hours in the day or space in the impound lot to handle all the violators. They sensibly chose option number two and looked away.

So an effective solution appears to be to press the reset button. By the end of the year, all cars must bear the distinctive new plates. Car owners have to show up at the fiscal office to obtain them, and they have to turn in their old plates. You can imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Scofflaws now must pay years of back fines and penalties. Failure to comply will be obvious to all.

We understand why the plates were changed. Only one more question remains: How was the pale blue and white color scheme chosen? Was it the suggestion of a design consultant? Was a design panel appointed? Surely it is mere coincidence that the colors chosen happen to be those of the ruling political party, Partido Acción Nacional.