'Personal" Reg Plates ?

Silvera

Would any of you guys like a 'personal' reg number on your car/van/truck/bike ?

What do you think of this idea I've had ?

Basically, I'm in Oz at the moment and motorists here can have virtually anything they want on their plates.
I'm not proposing this system for Ireland (I think they are a bit tacky).

However, how about this ?
Basically you would pick any number(s) you want and this would form you reg along with your county letter(s).
These plates could then be transfered to your next car and so on..........

E.g. - Somebody with a car registered in Donegal (or a person from Donegal) could request the reg (for example) DL-200 (or 200-DL) or a person living in Wicklow could request WW-550 (or 550-WW) etc etc.

Basically COUNTY LETTERS followed by a number(s),or visa- versa.
(i.e. no "year" on the plate, except perhaps a small expiry date)


What do you guys think ?

(Perhaps somebody here could organise a petition to the Dept of Environment (or Revenue?) if enough people like the idea).

Silvera.

Tommy Vercetti

eh what's the point of that then?

Dr. Dre

I say feck that, I want fully personalised number plates.
I don't care what people think of them, tis like water off a ducks back to me tbh.

leeroybrown

Hopefully it doesn't come in here. The DVLA in the UK make inordinate amounts of money by holding back any plates that might mean something from general cuirculation and auctioning them. Someone in the UK actually does drive around with the registration "PEN1S".

Occasionally in Ireland you do see situations where a particular plate has been arranged. Official council (mayoral) vechicles with the years first number on them. I've seen a black 911 in Galway with the Reg "04 G 911".

DukeDredd

It is actually possible to "book" a certain number for your car - like the Porche 911 you saw. As far as i can remember it's not that much either...

Silvera

Yes, you can currently reserve a particular reg number for a new vehicle.(Cost circa E300)
However, obviously, it is non-transferrable AND the reg shows the "year" on the plate.

My proposal would be for a plate system (optional ofcourse!) that you can keep/transfer each time you change cars AND which doesn't show the "year" on the plate.

ebowdia

I think the current system we have is good - simple and effective....

Walter Ego

I recently got a personalised number plate, now all I have to do is change my name to 98 G 1272.

rymus

yeah baby

bop1977

was reading bout this on the net the other day. u can book any number for the following year at a cost of E315 except for number 1 (ie 05-d-1) as some counties give their lord mayor a new car every year with the 05-XX-1 plate.

Seth Brundle

IIRC Joe Duffy Motors block book registrations like 04-D-320, 04-D-325 to match their BMWs. My E30 reg came this way [89-xx-320].

Blitzkrieger

You can book plates ahead of time but you can't customise them. For instance, I saw a 206 with the reg : 99 C 206. All you have to do is register the plate with the dept of the environment, then wait until the correct amount of cars have been sold (you can't have 206 until 1 - 205 have been registered). You then have the option to take the plate or not.

If I ever buy a new car..........I'm booking 1337.

rymus

55378008

if only it would fit

ando

whats so good about 1337?

Atomic Pineapple

the current system is perfect im my opinion, ya know the year of the car, where it came from and how many cars sold in that county, perfect, no fuss, simple

Silvera

My proposal is NOT to replace the current system, but to have these 'personal' plates as an option.

JohnBoy

One thing that could be slightly better imho is if the year and number were swapped.

think about when you need to note down a reg plate in a hurry eg hit and run.

2456 D .. and it was red

is a whole lot more useful than

04 D .... and it was red

we read from left to right and the component that reduces the possibilities the most should maybe be first.

on a kinda related note, I'm working in donegal this week and it seems like every second car up here has funky numver plates. blod lettering and drop shadows and all. I'm guessing the guards up here are very chilled cos I thought thsoe were illegal.

John

Our man in Havana

Originally posted by JohnBoy
One thing that could be slightly better imho is if the year and number were swapped.

think about when you need to note down a reg plate in a hurry eg hit and run.

2456 D .. and it was red

is a whole lot more useful than

04 D .... and it was red

we read from left to right and the component that reduces the possibilities the most should maybe be first.

on a kinda related note, I'm working in donegal this week and it seems like every second car up here has funky numver plates. blod lettering and drop shadows and all. I'm guessing the guards up here are very chilled cos I thought thsoe were illegal.

John

They are illeagal. But how many speed cams are there in DL? None I would guess. Anyway these boyo's will get their cars failed on the NCT for those dodgy plates.

davej

For once Ireland actually got something right, a nice logical system for licence plates and now people want to go and mess with the system?

Personalised license plates would destroy our ability to spot foreign cars, distract other motorists and generally allow annoying people to be even more annoying. :dunno:

davej

DukeDredd

Anyway these boyo's will get their cars failed on the NCT for those dodgy plates.

Not really. I've seen loads of these cars around and have heard that they keep a second legal set of plates for the day of the NCT test. @rseholes...

Furp

Here is the link the to revenue website which tells you how to book a plate number, personally I like our number plate system it gives you a lot of info very simply.

http://www.revenue.ie/services/vrt/vrt5.htm

What way does the english system work the first letter is the year right?

leeroybrown

For years England used to increment the first letter of the plates in August of every year (they skipped certain letters). Then they changed to a bi-annual letter change (February, August). Now I think they have changed the system so there is area information included too. The year still changes bi-annually.

http://www.dvla.gov.uk/vehicles/regmarks/reg_marks_current_system.htm

DukeDredd

I don't really know how introducing a personalised number plate system would benefit ordinary joe six-packs like myself. If i had a grand or two to spare, spending it on an "i've-a-huge-pen1s-really-i-do" number plate is the last thing i would do with it. The only people who would really benefit are people cruising down the road in a Porche 911 or something where the cost of one would be nothing to them...

Our man in Havana

Originally posted by bop1977
was reading bout this on the net the other day. u can book any number for the following year at a cost of E315 except for number 1 (ie 05-d-1) as some counties give their lord mayor a new car every year with the 05-XX-1 plate.

No, I know that most of JJ Kavanagh's buses have the number 1 Eg 01 TS 1. I know that 04 TN 1 is only just up the road from me, and is in private hands.

Silvera

Reg plate numbers can't/wont be used in reverse format because Trade Plates are in reverse format e.g. Wicklow Trade Plate : 210-WW-04.

Plates are reserved each year in Dublin, Cork and Limerick for the relevant Lord Mayors. e.g. For 2004 - 04-D-1, 04-C-1 and 04-L-1.

My proposal would still use 'europlates' in the current style/format but would simply omit the "year" part of the plate
e.g. You could opt for 200-D (or D-200) for your car , and keep it for all your future cars.
(I would expect/suggest a fee of a couple of hundred euros for a 'personal' plate - and a small renewal fee).

So there would be little/No chance of mistaking such plates for 'foreign' registrations.


N.B. These plates would be in addition (i.e. OPTIONAL) to normal registrations.

Silvera

leeroybrown

TBH, I don't see them as being much of a benefit. Naturally if the Government thought theyu could make reasonable money from them they'd probably try to bring them in.

Afaik, the DVLA in the UK have a plate parking charge to allow you to keep a registration plate in your name without having it legally registered to a car.

bop1977

Originally posted by Bond-007
No, I know that most of JJ Kavanagh's buses have the number 1 Eg 01 TS 1. I know that 04 TN 1 is only just up the road from me, and is in private hands.

I said SOME counties not all counties

Silvera

Furp,

UK plates have changed in the last few years.
They now incorporate an 'age identifier' i.e. the year of registration.
However, it is different than our system in that it changes twice a year.

e.g. 2002 Jan-June = 02
2002 June-Jan = 52.
2003 Jan-June = 03
2003 June-Jan = 53 etc etc.

PBC_1966

UK plates have had an age identifier on them for some 40 years.

The original system here had one or two letters indicatiing the registration district, followed by a serial number of up to 4 digits in length, e.g. PS 4965. Some years later, new registrations adopted a 3-letter/3-figure format, e.g. AYG 427. The second and third letters still indicated the original district of registration. (The old Irish system, being adopted prior to 1920, followed this scheme, with all Irish registrations being given codes which included the letters I or Z).

By the 1950s, some of the heavily populated areas in Britain started issuing numbers in the reverse format, e.g. 738 PEV.

The new system with a suffix year letter was introduced in some areas in 1963, and in all areas within a couple of years. Originally, the registration year was the calendar year (e.g. LKG 123C is a 1965 registration) but in 1967 we switched to an August thru July system (e.g. AGT 690H indicates a registration between August 1969 and July 1970). When the letters ran out in the early 1980s, we got the year letter put at the front and the numbers/letters swapped around, e.g. A145 PJY. The last few letters of that system were changed every 6 months in the run up to the new system a couple of years ago which Silvera has described.

Personally, I've never seen any real need to include the age of a car as part of the number. The U.K. (and now Ireland) are two of the few places that go to this trouble.

With regard to personalized numbers, the newspapers here often publish lists of numbers for sale by the owner. The prices are just stupid, and looking at some you have to read a 4 as an A and other weird things to make sense out of them. They're not at all obvious half the time. If they have to tell you what the number is supposed to represent, why bother?

The system which operates in some U.S. states where somebody can ask for COOL-1 or some such for only a few bucks extra is fine, but hundreds and even thousands of pounds for the "personalized" British numbers is just insane.

red_ice

Originally posted by kbannon
IIRC Joe Duffy Motors block book registrations like 04-D-320, 04-D-325 to match their BMWs. My E30 reg came this way [89-xx-320].

yup, ill second that.

my dads innitials are i.o. So he gets xx-D- 10 (but in a font that looks like an i and an o) every time he gets a car... what a waste of money imo