Scanning the ads, it's easy to picture a 97/R or a 95/N but how will we manage in a couple of years when the numbers take over? Imagine the Audi A4 03/03 vs the 03/53, just doesn't have the same ring does it?
Even a 01/Y vs 01/51? Will it make sense or will the value of the plate finally disappear? Since 1963 we've had the familiar ring of a letter but alas no more.
I'm also convinced the DVLA chose 51 so they could make a shedload from plates that could easily include the letters "SI" in the sequence. Many of the new plates I've seen spell something stupid that the owners no doubt paid a grand or more for.
Colin
|
More fool them. Buying a new car is a waste of money anyway, so another grand on a number plate isn't going to make that much difference to them.
Andy
|
|
|
|
I saw LX15 123 the other day on a new looking lexus 4wd. Initially thought it was one of the new plates but looking again I don't think it is (because the 15 is the wrong way round and the last three digits should be letters, I think). Am I right in thinking it's an old plate or a customised number? (actually, I have changed the last three numbers to protect the owner....but they are still numbers not letters).
|
Is it me? I find the new plates hard to read, possibly because of unfamiliarity. By the time I've noticed GY51 or whatever, and taken in that it's a new plate, the letters just don't register with me.
Is it the font?
Is it the unfamiliarity of the new sequence?
Is it me?
Iread the DVLA explanation of the 51 the other day. It makes sense, but only in a very convoluted way. If we have to have a date signifier, why not start with 01?
Perhaps I'm just on of Terry's old geezers.
|
Mike Rollings wrote:
>
> Iread the DVLA explanation of the 51 the other day. It makes
> sense, but only in a very convoluted way. If we have to have
> a date signifier, why not start with 01?
>
Mike
They did start with 01 - it would have been released in March 2001, but they had the "Y" plate to use up first, hence 51 is the actual start.
Ian
|
Well, that's all right then. What was the pressing reason for using up the Y? Typical Civil Service thinking, along with putting hardly used bus lanes on the motorway and calling the resulting congestion a success for the scheme.
I'm tired of the stupidity ogf the people who purport to govern our country.
|
|
|
|
What you saw was a Northern Ireland plate (actually LXI 5123, but people change the letter and number spacing). Personalised numberplate dealers offer them very cheap - £50 upwards. Mostly used by coach operators to disguise the age of their vehicles. Years ago my mother had a Golf GTI Mk1 with such a plate (it was on the car when she bought it). She left it parked on a double yellow line not far from where the Conservative Party conference was being held. She got back just in time to persuade the police (about 30 of them) that it didn't contain a bomb......
And am I just being paranoid, or do the new reg plates look suspiciously like French ones? The type face has been changed, and the first time I saw a car on the new plates, I wondered why someone had registered a right hand drive vehicle in France. Could this be the first step to a single European registration system? (Not that it would be a bad thing - I could buy cheap old Alfas and Lancias in southern Italy where they don't rust, and drive them in the UK without having fight through layers of bureaucracy to re-register them.)
|
|
|
No, mate. A few years ago the govt. wanted to help the car manufacturers by getting rid of the August blip in sales. So they shifted to twice-yearly reg. changes. This was a new and hastily organised initiative to meet a perceived need. It makes sense to run right through the letters just as we did last time, but of course one effect was to bring the new numerical system forwards. My guess is that they kept the Y a) because as any psychologist will tell you closure is a good thing, and all they want is for us to be happy ;-) and b) it bought them some time to sort out the glitches with the new system.
Chris
|
Chris wrote:
> b) it bought them some time to sort out the glitches with the
> new system.
Shame not everyone managed it then. In Bristol - as I'm sure in other cities - a lot of the parking meters require you to type in the numbers of your registration plate, to prevent you passing your ticket on to anyone else if you find you have bought more time than you need.
Only they've suddenly realised that this won't work once there are a lot of '51' cars around.
Sue
|
|
|
|
|
The new plates are supposed to be easier to remember, according to the police who were consulted on the format of the letters and numbers. Sorry, but I find them totally confusing and impossible to remember. Only a British Civil Servant could make such a pigs ear of formatting an age related plate. Why not just print the year of registration on the bottom of the number plate, like I believe they do in US? (At least that's what's on the Batmobile anyway)
|
|
|
And like the USA, why not let us make up our own plates within a certain number of letters and numbers? I reckon it's easy to remember "SHARON69" than it is BR51YSH or similar.
Colin
|
|
|
>>a lot of the parking meters require you to type in the numbers of your registration plate, to prevent you passing your ticket on to anyone else if you find you have bought more time than you need.
Yes I heard this one locally too. I think they requested the first 4 digits though and that's why the confusion now as just about every local new car has the same number at the start.
Stephen
|
|
|
![2016 Vauxhall Insignia 2.0 CDTi [170] ecoFLEX SRi Vx-line Nav 5dr [S/S]](http://images.honestjohn.co.uk/imagecache/url/crop/90x60/https/assets.heycar.co.uk/t_default-export/f_auto/application_assets/images/holding.jpg)
_COLON_no_upscale()/cdn.uk.prod.group-mobility-trader.com/images/cas/89299d347ff035f5a09f2d539db70815/e526d612085f60be7b2ba59f71c91e4a.jpg)
