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Just seen a release about the new format of reg numbering. No doubt someone can tell me why on earth we make things so complicated. I reckon some 'working party' of bureaucrats sat for a year devising the scheme to be introduced next month. Why do we need to include an indication of the area and year of registration? Why can't we have a totally free format plate? In the states you can call your car GLADYS if you really want to! They could still charge for these personalised plates and it might cut out those pathetic distortions we see so often.
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i think the regional variations bit has been blown away, as i think the dvlc have already sold lots of numbers to punters that want to choose their reg next time around, and have chosen numbers from different regions...
mainly to do with making it as simple as possible for the automated big brother systems to track us, read our plates, and process them, and post out the endorsements/bans...
looking at the number of cameras that are monitoring us, i suppose one way to fight back would be to put lots of requests in under the data protection act for copies of the video... (we are entitled to do this)
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Colin - if you had seen the TV prog the other evening about the East German 'Stasi' of the 50's & 60's, you would realise exactly why the EU want a regional identifier on our plates. Think about it:
Socialist gov't in power
Locator number plates
CCTV in all towns
Plate reading cameras on all major routes
Mobile phones easily traced to area
Credit cars to trace time, date & type of spending
It's all about control......
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Yep
Stalin would be proud of them.
as ever
Mark
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One thing you might consider is that on a long journey seeing the age and area a vehicle comes from can pass the time. In the past I relied on the stickers on the rear screen - now I can get the location from the numberplate. Perhaps for bored children a competitive game that does not involve noisy electronic handheld games!
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i play spot the traffic police operating outside their own force boundary, quite common to see durham police setting up speed traps in northumbria for some reason...
this game has no useful purpose, (unless you are on the scottish border), but its mindless fun
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also always worth being able to spot the little letters "military police" on an otherwise normal looking traffic car around catterick/rippon/aldershot etc
cos they carnt touch civilians (they could radio in the local civilian police in extremes), however be careful as the MOD police are different and have all the normal powers which they use with gusto... Actually around some of the bases there are strong moves afoot to formalise the process of bringing out the MOD police as reinforcements when the local police have street fights etc to deal with...
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Old numbering system had run out of capacity. 3 decimal digits gives a combination of only 999. Using the 3 letter counting system gives a combination of over 12,000. Hence there is some logic in it, but does it really matter what region a car was registered in?
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Andrew
You have always been able to tell the location of the original registration, in fact in the old AA books there used to be a list.
The registration office is the last or the last two letters of the number. They do not generally have any connection with the location, but for example, for Essex the letters include TW, AR, F, HK. So, S 1213 ATW was first registered in Essex.
HW is a Bristol registration. So, L 123 FHW was first registered in Bristol.
Someone on here has undoubtedly got a list stashed away somewhere.
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Colin:
Couldn't agree more. Paying thousands for a half-baked attempt at a personal plate ---A5 TON -- looks ridiculous, and clearly the buyer has more money than sense. THe US has a far better system -- they also have prettier plates than the ugly UK ones as well, smaller and neater, usually with some graphic on the background to indicate the state. YOu can get a sensible personal plate there that looks cool, not crappy like in UK>
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