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You see a lot of cars with personal registrations fitted with number plates that are shorter in length than the norm. I just wondered if this was legal. I know that size and style of lettering needs to comply with regulations but am not sure about these cut down plates.
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I don't think the size of the plate is regulated, just the lettering and spacing. tinyurl.com/2tzbpg
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L\'escargot.
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Having read it properly, the minimum plate size is determined by the minimum margin dimensions in conjunction with the lettering sizes and spacing.
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L\'escargot.
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The three sizes of plates from September 2001 are shown in:
www.newreg.co.uk/services/acrylic_plates/acrylic_p...s
and dimensions in
tinyurl.com/3258wn
These are commercial sites but I suspect the information is correct.
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Thanks for all the help guys.
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As long as you have the correct margin you should be ok. So if you have reg# A1, you can have a very small plate indeed.
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As long as you have the correct margin you should be ok.
>>So if you have reg# A1 you can have a very small plate indeed.
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I think not. Some may think it flash but not the BiBs.
See my earlier link.
IIRC some of the original idea, when these plates were thought out, was safety.
Hence a specified size of reflective surface with white front to the front and yellow to the rear. Parked cars were more easily seen when the plates showed in the dark and "parking lights" were no longer required.
I suspect the different colours may be a carry over from when vehicles were required to park near side to the curb.
The biggest posers IMO are those with black vehicles sporting black/silver plates.
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A lot of Rover 75s seem to have enormous "filler" plates, which look, er, great, if the car itself is yellow. (There was a gorgeous Primrose Yellow colour towards the end of production IIRR)
I parked my Renault in Zaragoza years ago and the local car thieves went straight for my car (standy-outy black and yellow plates) and emptied it for me.
Why can't we have black on white plates front and rear like *most* countries?
Having said that, France is changing over to black on yellow (generic, no more departamental identifiers) plates front and rear in the New Year (format AB 123 CD, like Italy).
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The following site has very clear tables of number plate sizes and which ones it says are legal.
www.carplates4u.com/size.htm
But it does say
"THE LAW SAYS YOU MUST HAVE 11MM OF BACKING SHOWING UNDER ABOVE AND TO THE EDGES OF NUMBERS
SO YOU CAN HAVE A SMALLER SIZE PLATE AND STILL BE LEGAL DEPENDING ON THE AMOUNT OF LETTERS AND NUMBERS"
(Please ignore the shouting from the site)
So if they are correct then I bow to the earlier posters who said that normal modern cars can have smaller plates if there are a minimal number of characters.
Some further info on fonts
www.classic-number-plate.com/
Road Legal Number Plates
There are only four fonts that are permitted on road legal number plates.
The first was introduced in 1894 which was the hand painted font, this was from 1894 - 1919.
Then in the 1920's - 1964 the 3-1/2" digit was used; this was first made on solid cast aluminium, then went on to be die pressed plates from 1930's, using 5" high plates.
This then got changed in 1964 to the standard OLD font (Charles Wright) which was used up to September 2001, and had a digit height of (3-1/8").
With our European laws that came into effect Britain decided to change to our current font (New Charles Wright) which complies to BSAU145d. This was introduced because most registrations consisted of 7 characters, and this left no room on a number plate for a European flag (or Country of choice).
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