Uk Vehicle Registration System

[FROSTYBALLS]

For our members outside the UK, please find a description of the current UK vehicle registration system:

In the UK, when new vehicles are purchased they have to be registered with the UK Government, issued with a registration number, the appropriate annual vehicle tax paid, and insured. Registration number have to be displayed both on the front and rear on ‘registration plates’.

Registration plates have to conform to a British Standard, which specifies what the plate can contain, the font and size of font used, etc. This is partly to ensure that the registration number can be read from a distance of 75 metres.

Vehicle registrations are commonly referred to as:

'registration numbers', 'registration plates', 'plates', etc.

As regards registering a vehicle, two systems are in operation:

1. One for England, Scotland and Wales, and,

2. One for Northern Ireland.

ENGLAND, SCOTLAND & WALES

The current registration system was introduced from 1^st September 2001. Registration plates should be reflective white with black font at the vehicle front, and reflective yellow with black font at the rear. Registration numbers/plates look like this:

The COUNTRY IDENTIFIER is optional and can be either:

The EU symbol or national flag, and one of the national identifiers (eg. UK, GB (Great

Britain), SCO (Scotland), WALES, etc).

The AREA CODE identifies which area the car was first registered in. The first letter identifies the broad area –

A – Anglia: B – Birmingham: C – Cymru (Wales): D- Deeside: E – Essex: F – Forest and Fens; G – Garden of England: H – Hampshire and Dorset:

K – Milton Keynes: L - London: M – Manchester and Merseyside: N - North: O - Oxford: P - Preston: R – Reading: S – Scotland: T – used temporarily for Scotland:

V – Severn Valley: W – West of England: Y – Yorkshire.

The second letter sub-divides the broad area.

The AGE IDENTIFIER denotes when the car was first registered. The age identifier changes on the 1^st March and the 1^st September each year – for example:

01/09/2001 to 28/02/2002 – 51

01/03/2002 to 31/08/2002 – 02

01/09/2002 to 28/02/2003 – 52

01/03/2003 to 31/08/2003 – 03

This system is designed to run through until 2050.

The year identifiers for 2015 are:

a. To 28/02/2015 – 64

b. 01/03/2015 to 31/08/2015 – 15

c. From 01/09/2015 – 65

The three remaining letters are RANDOM.

NORTHERN IRELAND

A Northern Ireland registration number looks like this:

Again one has the optional COUNTRY IDENTIFIER.

The current system has the first letter and the numbers running in series. For example the series will run to A**9998, then to B**9998,then to C**9998, and so on.

The second and third letters are the COUNTY or CITY CODE – for example:

AZ – Belfast: BZ – Down: HZ – Tyrone: etc.

[Sensha]

One wonders why the year of purchase/registration is so important as to be made part of the tag number?

Over here, the licensing system is so random as to defy description. You have states like Delaware, with their two and three digit tags, other states that offer something similar to those who are connected, the bizarre obsession with personalized plates that reaps a lot o revenue for those states that choose to offer it, and on and on and on. No consistency, certainly no simple way of figuring out the purchase date from the tags themselves.

Thanks for all of the effort needed to pull this together. I'm sure more than a few others have wondered about all of the "## Plate" talk, and will benefit from this presentation, complete with graphics.

[FROSTYBALLS]

In Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales), we've had a registration system that identifies the year since 1963, and it is an easy way for the public to tell the year the vehicle was first registered, and thus the age of the car. The system doesn't allow a registration number to be issued which shows a vehicle to be younger than it actually is.

Handy when one is buying a used vehicle.

[Grumpy Cabbie]

The Sourthern Irish system has had the year as part of their number plates for years. 92D19342 for example - or something like that.

I think they've changed it now similar to ours in that it shows vehicles for 6 months of the year; 131D12345 for a 2013 car in the first six months of the year and 132D12345 for a 2013 car from June.

I'm not irish so please correct me if I'm wrong.

[FROSTYBALLS]

That is right.

The Republic of Ireland have had a year identifier since 1987. The first two digits identified the year, the next one or two letters identified where the vehicles was registered (eg. D - Dublin, KK - Kilkenny), followed by a sequence of numbers from one to six digits, starting with the first vehicle registered in that location that year.

In 2013, they split the year into two registration periods (January-June, July-December) and adopted a three digit year identifier - 2013 had year identifiers 131 (Jan-Jun) and 132 (Jul-Dec); 2014 had 141 and 142; etc