> > They failed to mention Big Brother, civil rights, privacy, the fifth amendment, and how you could identify a hit-and-run vehicle if you weren't a cop. Maybe these little imperfections are what kept it from becoming a reality.
> > Howard
>
> As christopher has already said, we have a year and location system in Britain of number plates.
>
> The car registrations started in Britain as three letters, three numbers. eg ABC 123. The numbers and the first letter were random. The last two letters were geographically assigned, although this wasn't picked up by the general public to a great extent. Later on, a letter was added to the end to show the year of issue, ie ABC 123D. This started in about 1961. The letters I,O,Q,U,Z were not used as they were either too similar to numbers or were the international letters for other countries with similar plates. In 1983 they got to the end of the alphabet and turned it all around. ie. A123 BCD. This went on till late 2001 when they ran out again. The last few letters were squeezed into 6 month intervals to make way for the new system. It is now in the format AB12 CDE. The first two letters are location specific and most people know about this now. The numbers correspond to the year and the last three letters are random. The numbers are different according to which 6 month period the plate is issued in. If in the first half of the year, it is simply the last two digits, eg 02. If in the second half it is the last two digits plus 50, eg 52. To complicate matters the first period runs from March 1st to september 1st and the other from September 1st onwards. So a registration issued in February 2003 will still be a 52.
>
> Are we clear on this?
>
> Good.
>
> The main point of this post now follows.
>
> When the 1961-2001 system was in force, Police records showed that the part of the plate most remembered by witnesses to accidents and the like was the year-letter. The Police lobbied for a system that would retain the year identifier system, as this would be of the most help to them.
>
>
> Beasty
And everybody in Britian understands that? How much do they pay the guy who revises the system every year? If I had his job, license plates would be wider than the car. I believe in injecting a little fun into my work.
Howard