The No #13 for 2013 campaign!

carchaeologist

This has been mooted about as a joke for awhile but über gombeen politician Michael Healy Rae has been vocal on this lately. Makes me almost want to apologise on behalf of all Kerry people.

AN INDEPENDENT TD has urged the government to consider amending Ireland’s car registration plate system for next year – because some superstitious motorists do not want cars with ’13′ on the plates.

Michael Healy-Rae has called on finance minister Michael Noonan to examine the possibility of changing the registration plate system for next year, saying the move would benefit the motoring industry as a whole.

“There’s people now who, we’ll say, always change their cars every two, three or four years,” Healy-Rae told TheJournal.ie.

“Take you, for instance – you might be one of these men who change their car every three years, and 2013 is your year to change.

“People like you are after going to the garages and saying they’ll wait until the next year” before replacing their cars, he added, simply because they did not want to drive cars carrying a number which is often thought to be unlucky.

Healy-Rae said car deals had already approached him to raise their concerns, which in turn had been fuelled by remarks from prospective car buyers who felt it might be bad luck to drive cars with the number 13 on them.

Alan Nolan from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) said the possibility of a superstitious drop in sales would hurt a sector that is already struggling.

“You have to put this in the context of the market, which has fallen from around 180,000 new cars per year… this year we’re looking at 75,000 or so in new sales,” he said.

“Even if it was five per cent of people [who opted against buying a 2013 car], in a market of 75,000 it’s still something that would have a real problem.”

Nolan said his society had been campaigning for an overhaul of the licencing system because it meant that the car trade was seasonal, with the majority of cars sold in the first quarter of the year.

Ireland could follow the UK’s lead by adding a new identifier to numberplates on cars registered after July, he suggested, by simply putting an X on the numberplate to read ‘X12-D-123456′.

-Rural divide-

Car dealers in certain areas had also experienced difficulty in car sales given how the county name on a numberplate cannot be edited afterward.

Some Dublin-based dealers were reluctant to buy viable second-hand cars, Nolan suggested, because they carried a rural county – meaning they would be more difficult to sell to another buyer.

“For a fee, as a moneyspinner, a dealer should be able to pay to get the registration changed to their own county,” Nolan said. “Nobody would need to do it, but it would be voluntary, and would help to raise cash for the country.”

The Department of Finance currently has no plans to change the registration plates, but says it is willing to consider proposals in advance of next year’s Budget when such measures would be formally enacted by the Revenue Commissioners.

The fear of the number 13 – formally known as triskadekaphobia – is thought to originate from the Bible, as there were 13 people present at the Last Supper after which Jesus was crucified.

A similar fear exists in Norse mythology, where Loki – seen as something of a devious ‘trickster God’, and who is said to have murdered another god – is the 13th god.

Another theory suggests that 13 is a number suggesting chaos, and that the civilisations of Ancient Persia – who believed the twelve astrological constellations ruled the universe – feared the advent of a 13th constellation that would destroy humanity.

It is common in team sports – and particularly in motorsport – for teams or clubs not to assign the 13 shirt or car number. The last time a Formula One car raced with the number 13 was in 1976.
By Gavan Reilly-journal.ie

Seriously, if you worry about that you probably also believe in fairies?

On a related note the #13 has not been issued in any county this year either, the series' have skipped from say 12D12 to 12D14, I'm not sure why this is, or who has ordered it. Are people really so gullible in this day and age!?

Also in the same vein and just as important.

THE GOVERNMENT has dismissed suggestions that Ireland allow motorists to register personalised numberplates for their cars – warning that the system would be too complicated.

Michael Noonan had been asked to consider the idea by Fine Gael backbencher Billy Timmins, who suggested that allowing bespoke numberplates could “cut down on unnecessary administration”.

Noonan dismissed the proposal, however, saying he did not want to change the current system which allows prospective buyers to figure out the age, and registration place, of a vehicle at a glance.

“It is seen as a simple and effective registration plate system which is indeed the envy of many European registration authorities, including the UK,” Noonan wrote in a parliamentary reply to Timmins.

A move to a more complicated plating system, using variations of letters and numbers, could create confusion without providing any real benefits.
The minister also warned that allowing a parallel system of personalised numberplates would place further demands on other agencies like the Gardaí, the government and the Revenue Commissioners.

“The small size of the Irish car market, the potential for confusion and increased tax evasion, as well as the costs of administering such a scheme, raise considerable doubts as to whether any real overall benefit would accrue to the State,” he said.
Gavan Reilly-journal.ie

AN INDEPENDENT TD...............
Michael Healy-Rae.........................
Alan Nolan from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI)..........................


Unreal.

carchaeologist

RoverJames wrote: »

AN INDEPENDENT TD...............
Michael Healy-Rae.........................
Alan Nolan from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI)..........................


Unreal.

I know, its real dark ages stuff. Seriously what are these guys on! It will be interesting to see if this campaign gathers any momentum. The 13s have already been removed from this years allocations, what will happen when there will be a 13 in every single plate next year.

Owen

This has been doing the rounds in After Hours for a few days. You'd think he'd be more worried with the constituents of his country running around with KY on their plates. I'm amazed Cork Supporters don't write in 'Jelly' on all the cars outside GAA games after it

The man's a moron, and what started as a big joke in Kerry to have Micheal Healy-Rae elected has turned into the biggest example of cronyism going. This just furthers it with his flat cap wearing son.

This must be some sort of joke. This fool is proposing to bend reality itself in order to appease the fears of a vested interest group. Up next: Healy-Rae proposes ban on sunlight to help the lightbulb industry.

Dont be at yourself

I'm starting my own campaign: to sterilize people campaigning for the license plate format to be changed because of superstitious nonsense.

bandit197

Would the reg 13 D 1313 cancel out any bad luck?.....or would you need to drive under a ladder?

F-Stop

OK, so they skip YY COUNTY 13

But do they skip YY G 130? (10 x 26)
OR YY G 1300? (100 x 26)
Then YY G 13000? (1000 x 26)

Just taking it that far, and over the last 25 years, and ignoring the fact that there are more than 26 lettered reg plates and also multiple occurences of 13 appearing (e.g. 00 G 13131), comes to at least 721,500 cars on our roads with the numerals '13' appearing together in that order on the reg plate.

QED: We are fcuking doomed if the Healey Raes remain in Irish politics.

Please forgive my lazy maths

Pique

They can get rid of the TN and TS ****e if they like. Or else expand it to every county. see how they like that. CNN and CN. LSN and RNS and MNS.

Self serving gombeen politics has resulted in some seriously messed up things in this country.

bazz26

The country is on the verg of bankruptcy and this is all that is concerning these gombeen yokels.




It also gives an indication of the level of intelegence of the morons who continue to vote for them.

Terrontress

In which year were 180,000 new cars sold?

langdang

bazz26 wrote: »

The country is on the verg of bankruptcy and this is all that is concerning these gombeen yokels.

But slack jawed yokels will have to take off their shoes and socks to get 13 and beyond. We don't want that in public do we? The 6 fingers thing we can get over, plays a mean banjo!

corktina

Lets ban the number 13! Instead we'll have a lucky Shamrock for the year next year....

Yes! That should do it,



(make us the laughing stock of the wholre world that is!):mad:

bohsfan

Terrontress wrote: »

In which year were 180,000 new cars sold?

I remember Dublin plate numbers went over 100000 one year. Was it the late nineties or something? Perhaps the year 2000 now that I think about it. So his figure is plausible.

However, it was very much a high tide year in terms of cars sold, so shouldn't really be held forward as an indicator of average car sales.

cjt156

Right I'm gonna pre-order
13 - KY - 666
and park it outside Paddy-Joe, Mickey-Joe Hayseed, bogmuncher Steve Austin Healy Rae or whatever's constituency office.

Chimaera

bohsfan wrote: »

I remember Dublin plate numbers went over 100000 one year. Was it the late nineties or something? Perhaps the year 2000 now that I think about it. So his figure is plausible.

However, it was very much a high tide year in terms of cars sold, so shouldn't really be held forward as an indicator of average car sales.

I think over 200k new cars were sold in 2000, but numbers stayed high for a good number of years after that. Right now, sales are a good deal below what they were pre-2000 but that's not such a bad thing given that the country is overrun with secondhand cars.

vetstu

bazz26 wrote: »

It also gives an indication of the level of intelegence of the morons who continue to vote for them.

And people who post stuff on the internet.

Back on topic, anyone who agrees with that Kerry gombeen on this topic should be shot.
SIMI just want people to buy this year instead of waiting. They know sales will be down anyway and are just using this as an excuse.

Ken.

At my current rate i won't have to worry about owning a 13 car till 2023:D

mb1725

cjt156 wrote: »

Right I'm gonna pre-order
13 - KY - 666
and park it outside Paddy-Joe, Mickey-Joe Hayseed, bogmuncher Steve Austin Healy Rae or whatever's constituency office.

:D

smash

there was a funny thread in AH about this. There's a guy there who says you can't register a car with a 666 reg. Even though he was proven wrong by multiple people, he still wont give up.

johnos1984

What a grunting Mong.

Who votes for these idiots at every election?

Paulw

But, there's nothing to worry about really.

Sure the world is going to end on 21st Dec 2012, according to the Mayans.

bazz26

vetstu wrote: »

And people who post stuff on the internet.

Back on topic, anyone who agrees with that Kerry gombeen on this topic should be shot.
SIMI just want people to buy this year instead of waiting. They know sales will be down anyway and are just using this as an excuse.

Just pulled over by the spelling police.

langdang

lucyfur09 wrote: »

At my current rate i won't have to worry about owning a 13 car till 2023:D

True, I'll be there or thereabouts too. Any unlucky ones will surely have been weeded out by then!