Ohio makes color change

Pink out, bluish green in on future driver’s licenses.

Gov. John Kasich is closer to delivering on a pledge made four years ago to eliminate salmon from the cards of Ohio drivers.

In the Buckeye State, bluish green is in and salmon — which is just a fancy word for pink — is out when it comes to future state driver’s licenses and identification cards.

The Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles announced the change Monday, four years after Kasich playfully voiced his disdain for the shade of pink.

“It’s going,” the new governor said of the salmon, shortly after renewing his license and beginning his first term as governor in 2011.

Salmon came into vogue in 2009 during the term of former Gov. Ted Strickland. It wasn’t Strickland’s favorite color. Rather, it was a color choice designed to frustrate counterfeiters.

The American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators had recommended the salmon color because it is hard for forgers to reproduce.

Rob Nichols, Kasich’s spokesman, declined comment on the color change.

The Republican governor wasn’t the only salmon hater in the state. Munroe Falls motorist Barry Gaidek lamented the soft hue to the Beacon Journal during an interview in 2009, four months after its debut. The soft color was a shock to Gaidek, a Dominion East Ohio engineering technician, who learned of the new scheme while renewing his commercial driver’s license.

Back then, Gaidek had a humorous debate with a clerk at the Stow deputy registrar’s office. He called the color pink; she insisted it was salmon.

Nonetheless, pink is gone.

“Well, well, whatever will truckers do without a pink driver’s license?” Gaidek joked Monday.

There’s no need to rush out for the new color scheme. Those holding the salmon can do so until the expiration date. But if you can’t wait to shed the pink, you may visit your local BMV office and fork over $25.75 for a new driver’s license or $8.50 for the state ID.

“I’m going to wait it out,” said Gaidek, whose license doesn’t expire until 2017.

Anyone with questions regarding the new format should contact the Ohio BMV at 614-752-7500.