Long winded reg numbers for imports scrapped?

bbability

Just noticing this year that anyone who has imported a vehicle into the country is no longer getting the "12-D-120XXX" in Dublin or "12-MH-15XXX" in Meath
They seem to have reverted to the old system and are just following on from the last car registered.

Sh1tbag OToole

I thought they were gone with a while. I know some lad who imported a car from Norn Land a few years ago and he didn't get one of those numbers

bazz26

That was scrapped about 3 years ago.

hi5

The long numbers are still there for cars imported and first registered before 2012.

bazz26

I registered a 2011 import about 4 years ago and it got the next available number at the time.

Esel

What's the story on ZV numbers and equivalent e.g. 78- D numbers?

bbability

bazz26 wrote: »

That was scrapped about 3 years ago.

It wasn't for me two years ago when I brought in an 08 car. A friend of mine just brought in a 2011 and has a reg in the 50k.

savagethegoat

it was only for 08 to 11 cars afaik. still current for them

millington

It's different in every county but definitely seems to still happen on pre-09 stuff around here! Registered a Superb last year and got 08-LH-11*** which is what they were always giving here

hi5

It was indeed from 2011 onwards that it reverted to the next available number.

144. Deputy Olivia Mitchell

asked the Minister for Finance the rationale behind the decision to register imported cars starting from the number 120,000, as there does not seem to be any reasonable administrative reason or any consumer information purpose, but it does serve to devalue imported cars; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9732/12]

Minister for Finance (Deputy Michael Noonan): I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners that a new vehicle registration computer system was introduced in December 2011. Because of budgetary constraints, it was not possible to carry forward all the registration details of vehicles registered in the previous 19 years to the new system. Accordingly, a simplified model that did not require the details of the registration number assigned to the last vehicle registered in each of the licensing authorities in each of the previous 19 years was adopted for issuing registration numbers for prior years. The simplified model assigns registration numbers starting from a particular number for each licensing authority regardless of year. The particular number chosen had to be sufficiently high to enable additional unique registrations to be added. The starting registration number for each licensing authority was selected to ensure that there is no possibility of a vehicle being assigned a number that was previously assigned to another vehicle under the old system. Accordingly, the number will be higher than would have been assigned in the normal course of events for some years.

This is a short-term phenomenon. Vehicles presented for registration that were first registered in 2011 and subsequent years (in another State) will not be affected by this change and will be assigned the next available number in the sequence for that licensing authority and year of registration.

homer90

Buddy of mine imported last month got 10-D-129*** iirc

Leonard Hofstadter

homer90 wrote: »

Buddy of mine imported last month got 10-D-129*** iirc

That's because (as mentioned above) only vehicles on and from 2011 get the next available number. Anything from 2010, or before that, still gets a silly number, such as 09-C-40xxx.

boardsuser1

A neighbour of mine recently imported a car, the reg is 11-C-16***

Soarer

Have imported 2 cars in the not too distant past.

The 2012 got 12-C-131**
The 2008 got 08-C-417**

boardsuser1

Soarer wrote: »

Have imported 2 cars in the not too distant past.

The 2012 got 12-C-131**
The 2008 got 08-C-417**

My own on is an import. Brought in in 2010. Reg is 09-C-9***

Silvera

While modern cars from 2011 onwards now get a 'normal' registration, owners of vintage cars are still left with '120,000+' system - numbers which look wrong on such vehicles, e.g. I've seen a 1931 MG car with the reg '31-D-120001' ?!

The alternative 'ZV' registrations are only marginally better, as they too have too many digits, e.g. 'ZV 93867' :rolleyes:

CiniO

Silvera wrote: »

While modern cars from 2011 onwards now get a 'normal' registration, owners of vintage cars are still left with '120,000+' system - numbers which look wrong on such vehicles, e.g. I've seen a 1931 MG car with the reg '31-D-120001' ?!

The alternative 'ZV' registrations are only marginally better, as they too have too many digits, e.g. 'ZV 93867' :rolleyes:

Generally Irish registration number have too many characters anyway.

We are a small country, with only about 2.5 million vehicles on the roads, and our registration numbers reach as much as 10 characters.

Countries with multiple times amount of cars, have much shorter registration number.
F.e. UK have about 14 times the amount of cars as we do (35 million) but they can manage with reg numbers up to 7 characters. Similarly France, Spain, Germany, Italy.

10 character on a plate makes it very hard to read or memorise in case you need to get number quick (f.e. hit and run).

hi5

Yes, 5 digits made up of letters only will give you almost 11 million combinations

CiniO

hi5 wrote: »

Yes, 5 digits made up of letters only will give you almost 11 million combinations

Letters on it's own could be bit hard to memorize, but general 3 letters + 3 number (not necesserily on that order) is just 6 characters and gives nearly 14 million combinations (and that's assuming O and I letters are not used as they might be too similar to 0 and 1 number.

That would be plenty as I don't think there's ever going to be more than 14 million vehicles in Ireland.

wonski

It is just a number.

Nothing else but a number.

My 2p

savagethegoat

savagethegoat wrote: »

it was only for 08 to 11 cars afaik. still current for them

correction...pre 2012 ....silly of me, seeing as I have an 87C40xxx and a 79KY10xxx!

Sh1tbag OToole

CiniO wrote: »

Letters on it's own could be bit hard to memorize, but general 3 letters + 3 number (not necesserily on that order) is just 6 characters and gives nearly 14 million combinations (and that's assuming O and I letters are not used as they might be too similar to 0 and 1 number.

That would be plenty as I don't think there's ever going to be more than 14 million vehicles in Ireland.

They should bring back the old black on red plates for aesthetic reasons

Leonard Hofstadter

CiniO wrote: »

Letters on it's own could be bit hard to memorize, but general 3 letters + 3 number (not necesserily on that order) is just 6 characters and gives nearly 14 million combinations (and that's assuming O and I letters are not used as they might be too similar to 0 and 1 number.

That would be plenty as I don't think there's ever going to be more than 14 million vehicles in Ireland.

Absolutely. I don't know why we don't just go back to the old system, that worked well and disguised the age of a car, plus the fact you'd only know where a car was from if you were a complete nerd (the last two letters in the three letter sequence were county codes), so there was none of this stupid fecking D reg snobbery either. Both of these are massive advantages of the old system, plus they're easier to remember because of there being fewer characters.

hognef

captainspeed wrote: »

Absolutely. I don't know why we don't just go back to the old system, that worked well and disguised the age of a car

Presumably because that would end the "Order your 161 whatever now" idea, which might reduce the pressure to buy new cars and therefore reduce the tax take...

Indeed number plates could and should be significantly shorter. And not variable length. That goes for phone numbers too, by the way.

Esel

captainspeed wrote: »

... I don't know why we don't just go back to the old system, ...

Because it was 'not invented here'!

All regs here had 'I' and/or 'Z', so we would stand out like sore thumbs on the 'mainland'...

CJhaughey

CiniO wrote: »

Letters on it's own could be bit hard to memorize, but general 3 letters + 3 number (not necesserily on that order) is just 6 characters and gives nearly 14 million combinations (and that's assuming O and I letters are not used as they might be too similar to 0 and 1 number.

That would be plenty as I don't think there's ever going to be more than 14 million vehicles in Ireland.

Take New Zealand as a comparable sized country with a similar sized population.
they used to use two Letters and Four numbers but when they ran out of combinations they started with three letters and three numbers.
Simple system.
Of course Motorcycles and Trailers have different reg as well, Bike have Letter Digit and then 3 letters and Trailers use Letter 3 digits and then letter.

Sam Russell

CJhaughey wrote: »

Take New Zealand as a comparable sized country with a similar sized population.
they used to use two Letters and Four numbers but when they ran out of combinations they started with three letters and three numbers.
Simple system.
Of course Motorcycles and Trailers have different reg as well, Bike have Letter Digit and then 3 letters and Trailers use Letter 3 digits and then letter.

That is precisely how it was here and NI, reversing the order to increase combinations. NI went for an extra digit to make it three letter and four numbers.

We went for a daft system of YY CC NNNN where YY was the year, CC was the taxing county, NNNN was the number starting at 1 for each year - with the local mayor getting the 1.

Starting this in 1987 of course meant we got 87, 88, 89, 90, 93, 95, 96, 98, 99, 00 in the first 14 years - all easily confused - particularly since their is no defined legal font.

Then we have the problem of car reg numbers like 04 D 11111 and 04 D 1111 and reg confusion with 12 D 1234 and 12 D 12345. (Fixed length and not more than two same digits together helps fraud/mistakes).

Then we got the problem of old cars from say 1912 getting a reg of 12 D 22, and a 2012 car getting the same reg.

Could not make it up. But at least it was designed here.