Number/Registration Plates Dublin

fitzet

My son is doing a project on car registration plates and he was wondering why Dublin has only one registration 'D' while counties like Waterford and Tipperary have two.
I know Dublin city and county were amalgamated in 1952, but even the old style plates (pre 1987) had lots for Dublin. Why is there only one now?
Also the highest number plate he has found is a Dublin number 100907 is there any online resource where we could find the highest number registered in a year?
Have done lots of google and wiki searches but can't find answers. Can anyone help?

Wishbone Ash

fitzet wrote: »

Also the highest number plate he has found is a Dublin number 100907

It went much higher in 2000. I had 00D1042** (registered 3rd week December) and at the end of that year I saw 106***. Subsequent imports would bring that figure up in later years. I recall seeing 00D120***.

fitzet

Thanks, he has another month or two left to go on his project so it is good to know it is worth his while to keep looking!

Wishbone Ash

fitzet wrote: »

My son is doing a project on car registration plates and he was wondering why Dublin has only one registration 'D' while counties like Waterford and Tipperary have two.
I know Dublin city and county were amalgamated in 1952, but even the old style plates (pre 1987) had lots for Dublin

Limerick and Waterford opted for seperate numbers - city and county. Tipp always had 2 county councils hence the two plates.

The reason Dublin had so many was simply due to demand. They ran out of each series long before other counties. Even when the country was on it's knees in 1986, Dublin was still changing series on a regular basis. The ZS was the last before the new system.

Leitrim had it's initial series for 69 years!!

Wishbone Ash

Here's a couple of examples of high Dublin numbers if they are of any use to you.

The Aston is a used import and subsequenty added to the end of the year 2000 series.

I'm 99% sure the Bentley was also imported but it must have been done relatively early into 2001.

00 D 108521



00 D 106731

Thoie

From www.cartell.ie you can work out that 00 Ds stopped at 113893 (a Skoda Fabia if you care). I did that in about 3 minutes using a binary search method.

bladebrew

Thoie wrote: »

From www.cartell.ie you can work out that 00 Ds stopped at 113893 (a Skoda Fabia if you care). I did that in about 3 minutes using a binary search method.

i think they went to 120,000 in one year dont have a clue when that was though,whats a binary search method??

Thoie

bladebrew wrote: »

i think they went to 120,000 in one year dont have a clue when that was though,whats a binary search method??

Binary search - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_search

Take a look at the number guessing game example there (or read on here for a bowdlerised version )

Say I have to guess a number between 0 and 100 (it's 47), and every guess I make, you'll tell me if I'm too high or too low. I start with 50, next guess is 25, next guess is 37, 44, 47 - bingo!

The rule behind it (IIRC - too late to be reading the wiki) says that I'll find the number within log2 N. In this case N=100, so I'll find it within 6.x guesses.

kazul

This would be a good thread for carchaeologist, his posts alone would be the makin' of the kid's project

Guy:Incognito

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

It went much higher in 2000. I had 00D1042** (registered 3rd week December) and at the end of that year I saw 106***. Subsequent imports would bring that figure up in later years. I recall seeing 00D120***.

Its a fair bit higher. I have 112751. I have seen a couple of 113XXX

Victor

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

Limerick and Waterford opted for seperate numbers - city and county. Tipp always had 2 county councils hence the two plates.

Essentially some counties have one registration authority, some have two.

An Ard Ri

If you ring up the motor tax office in Dublin City Council, i'm sure they will be able to help you.

Victor

Oh, one more thing. Dublin County Council was being broken into 3 at the time, so having multiple registrations may have been more of a hindrance than a help until people got used to the new councils.

colm_mcm

There's a guy called carcheologist on here that can tell you anything you need (or don't need) to know about number plates and their history.

actuallylike

I find it hard to believe so many cars are registered in Dublin alone, obviously the numbers speak for themselves but 100,000?!? I'm not denying it, I've seen the 100,000+ plates but if you take the population of Dublin to be 1 million, that means 1 in 10 gets a new car each year? How's that?
Also, what's the deal with the number 1 car? I know the Mayor gets it on his Volvo but I am 100% positive I have seen a few bus eireann buses with 'year - D - 1' on them.

TomMc

Yr 2000 was just a special year. Had novelty value and add celtic tiger and easy credit and that is why registrations exceeded 100K. A lot of imports in subsequent years have added on to the overall tally. Doubt it will ever reach this figure again in our lifetime.

fitzet

Thanks everyone for your help. He presented his project and earned his badge. He had lots of extra 'interesting numerplate facts' to give for added value. Who knew there was such a lot of information out there? Once again thanks to all for your input!

L-M

This makes for some interesting reading also,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Ireland