Licence (license) plates

[m.j.mooney@bradford.ac.uk (Mike Mooney)]

All this stuff about choosing custom licence (British spelling) plates is
intriguing from a UK point of view. I don't know if the US subscribers are
aware, but you can't have just what you want on a plate over here. All new
cars are automatically given a 'letters + numbers' plate before they are
sold. This started in the early years of the century with 'A 1' (I belive
the actual car is in a motor museum somewhere), progressing up to the
current '1 alpha (prefix) + 3 numeric + 3 alpha' format (although they don't
issue risque combinations like such as 'FUK'!). Consequently the ones that
people always want are typically '<their initials> 1'. 

There must be a 'WHO 1' around somewhere (I have a feeling that Kit Lambert
may have had it at one time). To get hold of a particular plate you have to
buy the car it's on (you can switch plates from one car to another provided
you own them both), probably at a huge price depending on how 'desirable'
the plate is. The vehicle licencing people finally got wise to this a couple
of years ago and starting allowing people to reserve a number (at a price)
from the each new year's allocation. 

People do try to fuck around with the letters and numbers to make them read
like something different (e.g. reshaping '8's to look more like 'B's, moving
digits closer together, etc.), but strictly speaking this is illegal. 

The car sales people love this system, because 'personality plates' aside,
the accepted status symbol is to have the new year's prefix (we're up to 'N'
this year) thus demonstrating that you can afford a brand-new car. I don't
know of anywhere else in the world where this happens. 

(What a boring post, sorry folks...)

Mike Mooney (G 223 PRB)