Talk:Vehicle registration plates of the United Kingdom

Split
The article Vehicle registration plates of the United Kingdom has been split from Vehicle registration plates of the United Kingdom, Crown dependencies and overseas territories. Previous talk page content relevant to this page is at Talk:Vehicle registration plates of the United Kingdom, Crown dependencies and overseas territories.

Having made the more obvious separations, I still think the article would benefit from further splitting (it's still well over 100 kB), but I'm going to postpone thinking about that until another day! Quackdave (talk) 21:00, 13 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the your work on this User:Quackdave. MilborneOne (talk) 21:24, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

regional codes

 * 1) I presume the region indicated by the code relates to the registered address of the vehicle's owner at time of first registration
 * 2) * though even this is untrue for vanity plates and old registration codes transferred from destroyed vehicles
 * 3) The mapping from addresses to regions is not so clear.
 * 4) Prior to 1974 I suppose the local government area boundary was the relevant one; so if you lived in West Suffolk  and went to the East Suffolk office to register your new car they would refuse you.
 * 5) In Ireland the local government areas were the counties and county boroughs under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898; did GB likewise use the counties and county boroughs under the Local Government Act 1888, Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889? Or were some of these merged or divided for vehicle registration purposes?
 * 6) What happened after 1974? The article says the pre-1974 codes continued (till 2001 in GB, till now in NI) "now indicating the nearest LVLO/VRO rather than the local or regional authority".
 * 7) Were there still boundaries between LVLOs/VROs which had to be observed? (so if you lived within the Norwich bailiwick and went to the Ipswich office to register your new car they would refuse you)
 * 8) Were these boundaries different from those used pre-1974?
 * 9) Did the Local Government Act 1972 Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 and Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 impel the 1974 changes?
 * 10) Did those acts and subsequent revisions of local government boundaries affect the LVLO/VRO boundaries?
 * 11) I presume the GB code changes in 2001 were not accompanied by a change in the boundaries between LVLO/VRO areas?
 * 12) I presume the 2013/2014 centralised registration in Swansea doesn't affect the area codes, and that when you enter you postcode it automatically works out which region code to assign?
 * jnestorius(talk) 11:05, 9 October 2017 (UTC)


 * In most cases the registrations are issued to dealers in batches so normally relate to the place of business rather than related to the customer. The customer then chooses registrations that have not been used by the dealer from the allocated batch. An example is private hire vehicles that can be seen all around the United Kingdom but are registered in Scotland as they are converted by Allied Vehicles Limited/Cab Direct based in Scotland. Taxi_on_Woodhouse_Lane,_Leeds_(4th_May_2010).jpg MilborneOne (talk) 12:16, 17 October 2017 (UTC)

Black plate with silver letters entitlement to display.
According to this: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/698421/inf104-vehicle-registration-numbers-and-number-plates.pdf Entitlement to display the older style plates now rolls forward each year, along with the entitlement to historic free tax class and MOT exemption: "Traditional number plates for vehicles made before 1 January 1973 Vehicles made before 1 January 1973 may display traditional ’black and white’ number plates (for example, white, silver or grey characters on a black plate). Since April 2018 vehicles manufactured before 1 January 1978 can display the older style plates. You must: • have applied to DVLA • be registered within the ‘historic vehicles’ tax class. Vehicles constructed 40 or more years ago are exempt from tax. The 40 year exemption date rolls forward automatically each year on 1 April." from page 11 of the link.

Currently the wiki article says that its only for vehicles that were made before Jan 1st 1975, please can someone update this to reflect the fact it rolls over with historic tax for any cars over 40 years old on 1st April each year.Lotrjw (talk) 21:46, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Q Plates
The “Q” prefix continued to denote a temporary import well after 1963; our family motor was (briefly) registered QQ 1773 in 1969 in between collection from Saab UK and being re-registered in Germany with a BAOR plate. But I can't for the life of me find out when it stopped being used for that purpose. Mr Larrington (talk) 11:16, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

National identifier

 * BNMA's website shows a version of national identifier with the Union Jack displayed vertically with same background colour to the rest of the number plate. Despite the online numberplate makers using mostly blue-background GB banner, the BNMA version is also gradually seen on the roads.-- Fourthbus  Talk  15:12, 9 June 2021 (UTC)

Motor cycle front end number plates
I would be interested in more information on this. I had never heard of them being refered to as dangerous to pedestrians, I always thought it was things like if the rider ended up in an accident and was thrown forward over the handlebars, the damage it would do. Was there a specific incident, was there a long campaign against the front plates, what did the government or other authorities say about the situation of having them?

What goes 'ere?
What typically goes where the "Wikipedia UK SE1 0NZ" is? – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 10:55, 14 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Never mind, found it. – Illegitimate Barrister (talk • contribs), 11:10, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Using up prefix letters (1983 to 2001)
The use of "exacerbated" here:

"By the late 1990s, the range of available numbers was once again starting to run out, exacerbated by a move to biannual changes in registration letters (March and September) in 1999 to smooth out the bulge in registrations every August, so a new scheme needed to be adopted."

implies that the people who designed and implemented the move to the 6 month registration periods made an error of judgement, but from what I remember of the change, it was deliberately done so that the old prefix letters would be completely used up ready for the introduction of the current system in 2001, starting the numbering with 01.

If the years had not been shortened for the last letters, either after all the letters had been used the new system would have started with 04, or to start with 01 the letters W, X and Y would have been missed. 82.33.140.88 (talk) 22:56, 9 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Just checked your contribs and found this too, sorry if I'm being a bit intrusive.
 * I agree, it comes across as rather wrong and it makes sense to use up the late-90s letters up to 2001. Noticed that oddity when I was putting a spreadsheet of number plates together using this article; it doesn't help that the offending line - and whole section - is unsourced. I'll pop in a Template:Citation needed and see if anyone comes back to it. Hullian111 (talk) 15:04, 22 December 2022 (UTC)