How many other countries put they year / city on the registration plate?

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18

I know where my auntie lives (in Germany), the registration has the city (where the registered owner lives, not the initial place of registration) followed by random letters / numbers.

For example, a car with a registered owner residing in Berlin will have "B" followed by random digits. If the car is sold, then the plate will too. The plate bears no connection between place of original registration or its age.

A Finnish coworker of mine tells me that the vehicles in Finland have 3 letters followed by three numbers and that registration plates there bear no connection whatsoever with the year of manufacturing nor the place of initial registration.

I have seen and heard of people mumbling at a perfectly good car because it doesn't have a D reg. When I told my Finnish coworker this, he was astounded.

Should be remove the year and county from Irish plates? If we adopt the Finnish style of three random letters followed by three random numbers, (without repeating character) we will end up with: 26*25*24*10*9*8 = 11,232,000 combinations.

This will end the nonsense of cars being sold simply based on their age or county.

CiniO

Definitely we should get rid of both - year and county.
I think similar system that you described from Finland operates in Spain.

Poland has similar system like Germany.
They put County + Local area code on a plate. And plate must be always updated according to current owner permanent address.
That creates unnecessary conflicts, like people from bigger cities complaing about redneck driving with country side regs in the cities and having no clue about big juntions/ traffic lights, etc...
As well as country side people complaining about lunatics from Warsaw flying through the bendy country roads without neccesery skills, etc, etc... etc...

I recall being once in Warsaw staying at my friends place for the night, and was told better not to park my Krakow reg car in public parking, as it might get damaged.

Silly and unnecessery.


Number plates are only for identification purposes, so random reg number with as little characters as possible are the most efficient way.

Eric Cartman

Current County + 5 Digits (numeric and hex) would be my preference,

so you can have say D-00F01A which is the 61,466th registered vehicle, this numbering system accounts for up to 16 million vehicles while keeping plates short. We could branch out and use all the letters to even possibly reduce the number of digits.

Having the year on the plate is silly unless you're a car dealer in which case you love it.

salmocab

whatever about county, whats wrong with buying a car and wanting to easily identify how old it is?

DoctorEdgeWild

I think registrations are one area where Ireland gets it better than anywhere else I've been.

Great to identify the year at a glance. Much easier to remember in the event of some emergency situation as well as the year and county stand out immediately.

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18

salmocab wrote: »

whatever about county, whats wrong with buying a car and wanting to easily identify how old it is?

Ask the dealer and examine the registration document when buying, otherwise, it's none of your business how old a car is.

Eric Cartman

salmocab wrote: »

whatever about county, whats wrong with buying a car and wanting to easily identify how old it is?

it distorts the used car market unfairly.

salmocab

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18 wrote: »

Ask the dealer and examine the registration document when buying, otherwise, it's none of your business how old a car is.

I like to look at cars on the forecourt and decide if im interested in finding out more, one of the things Im interested in initially is how old the car is, so despite what you think I do feel its my business as to how old the car is.

Cookie_Monster

3 letters, 3 numbers is the standard over here NZ. but can also be 3 + 2 and then private plates on top of that which can be any combo of numbers and letters up to 6 digits.
pretty sure Aus is the same.

salmocab

Eric Cartman wrote: »

it distorts the used car market unfairly.

How? (genuine question)

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18

salmocab wrote: »

I like to look at cars on the forecourt and decide if im interested in finding out more, one of the things Im interested in initially is how old the car is, so despite what you think I do feel its my business as to how old the car is.

If you like the specs of the car and how it looks, then arrange to see the document. Are you telling me that the year on the plate supersedes the service history and specs?

salmocab

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18 wrote: »

If you like the specs of the car and how it looks, then arrange to see the document. Are you telling me that the year on the plate supersedes the service history and specs?

No didnt say anything of the sort

mikeecho

How about a registration plate assigned to the owner.
The same plate follows you to your next car.
If you have multiple vehicles, then a small number is added.

A bit like the g13 on this place

biko

Greece have prefecture on their plates.

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18

salmocab wrote: »

No didnt say anything of the sort

Then why is the age of the car important?

Why can't you just ask to see the age AFTER you've seen a potential car that you might buy?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18 wrote: »

Then why is the age of the car important?

Why can't you just ask to see the age AFTER you've seen a potential car that you might buy?

How many cars have you actually bought?

When I bought used cars (and I have bought many in my time) I always had an age range in mind before looking at actual cars. Having the year on the reg is very convenient when browsing the forecourts.

bazz26

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18 wrote: »

Then why is the age of the car important?

Why can't you just ask to see the age AFTER you've seen a potential car that you might buy?

If age is of little significance then it should be easy enough to just not pay any attention to the number plate. Wanting the existing system changed to hide the age on the number plate would actually suggest that maybe it does bother you.

I think the existing system is fine. The only thing I would get rid of is that stupid 1 and 2 after the year denoting the time of year it was registered, brought in to suit the SIMI and their quest to drive up sales twice a year.

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18

Alonzo Straight Thinker wrote: »

How many cars have you actually bought?

When I bought used cars (and I have bought many in my time) I always had an age range in mind before looking at actual cars. Having the year on the reg is very convenient when browsing the forecourts.

I'm 27 and have bought 5 cars in my life. No one here has actually given me a legitimate reason as to they the year is a genuine thing to consider when buying a car.

Arthur Daley

how many people buy their cars solely on year or county. whatever percentage it is, punters like that are just asking to be hammered tbh.

salmocab

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18 wrote: »

Then why is the age of the car important?

Why can't you just ask to see the age AFTER you've seen a potential car that you might buy?

Because as I already explained if I see a car I like one the first things I wonder is how old it is, maybe you dont and thats fine but I do. If I want a ford focus I might want a newer one and dont want to waste my time going in to the dealer to find out its 4 years older than what I want. I wouldnt buy based on it being a specific year but it would certainly be something I would consider as Im sure do most people.

salmocab

Arthur Daley wrote: »

how many people buy their cars solely on year or county. whatever percentage it is, punters like that are just asking to be hammered tbh.

very few Id imagine but how old the car is is certainly a consideration

CiniO

Alonzo Straight Thinker wrote: »

How many cars have you actually bought?

When I bought used cars (and I have bought many in my time) I always had an age range in mind before looking at actual cars. Having the year on the reg is very convenient when browsing the forecourts.

What's stopping car dealers from displaying car age, together with engine size, price and other relevant info on a little label behind the windscreen like they do normally.
It's obvious that cars for sale needs to have info attached to them for potential buyers.

CiniO

salmocab wrote: »

Because as I already explained if I see a car I like one the first things I wonder is how old it is, maybe you dont and thats fine but I do. If I want a ford focus I might want a newer one and dont want to waste my time going in to the dealer to find out its 4 years older than what I want. I wouldnt buy based on it being a specific year but it would certainly be something I would consider as Im sure do most people.

And when you are buying that Ford Focus, are you not interested what engine it has (diesel, petrol, size, emissions, etc) ? Are you not interested about trim level? Are you not interested in mileage?
All those including car age, are absolute basics that every dealer should display to potential customers.
There's no point in having a year on a number plate, as you don't have any other data there anyway and still need to find out.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

CiniO wrote: »

What's stopping car dealers from displaying car age, together with engine size, price and other relevant info on a little label behind the windscreen like they do normally.
It's obvious that cars for sale needs to have info attached to them for potential buyers.

Agreed. But, what's wrong with the current extremely simple and straightforward system? It's not broken, so don't fix it.

Eric Cartman

salmocab wrote: »

How? (genuine question)

People paying more money for a higher number on a plate, used cars depreciate faster here than in a lot of other countries. There are many cars that have say a model life of 10 years where with a few touch ups you wouldnt know the difference between a 9 year old one and a brand new one, except for the plate , if the year wasnt on the plate then used models would have higher residual value until the model was changed.

As a result it makes buying higher end cars for rental / taxi / chauffer purposes more expensive and uneconomical to do.

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18

Alonzo Straight Thinker wrote: »

Agreed. But, what's wrong with the current extremely simple and straightforward system? It's not broken, so don't fix it.

It damages the second hand market and lots of people buy cars based solely on the year.
People at Christmas time plan to get their 181D of Paddy Spec and update again in July for 182. There are perfectly good old cars being gotten rid of because of this.

My Finnish coworker told me that he drove a 20 year old Beamer and his basic third part insurance which was purchasable from the municipality (similar to motor tax office here) cost him €90 for three months ! I nearly sh1t myself when he told me that. This was only two years ago in Tampere btw.

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18

My car is 10 years old with a Westmeath reg btw.

salmocab

CiniO wrote: »

And when you are buying that Ford Focus, are you not interested what engine it has (diesel, petrol, size, emissions, etc) ? Are you not interested about trim level? Are you not interested in mileage?
All those including car are, are absolute basics that every dealer should display to potential customers.
There's no point in having a year on a number plate, as you don't have any other data there anyway and still need to find out.

But dealers dont display all these things, generally speaking the easiest thing to identify is the age of the car, so after doing that I can then decide to look into all the other factors that matter or decide not to. Its actually a convenient starting point. I dont actually have strong feelings on the reg plate thing to be honest but if Im buying a second hand car it would be one of the things Id look at first as its a convenient starting point.

CiniO

Alonzo Straight Thinker wrote: »

Agreed. But, what's wrong with the current extremely simple and straightforward system? It's not broken, so don't fix it.

Imo it's broken because it wasted space on a number plate, unnecessarily using too many characters.

F.e. first digit on vast majority of cars currently in the country is 0 or 1. That's a waste of space.
Second digit is properly used, but then again thrid digit can be only 1 or 2 which is another total waste of space.
Then we have up to 2 letters to describe county which we only have 26 of here so one letter would do.
And after that we only use digits for consecutive numbers, while we could use letters as well.


In short, Ireland is small country with between 2 and 3 million vehicles registered in service, but uses number plates with 9 to 10 characters, with possibility of soon reaching 11 characters on a number plate, while much bigger countries like UK, Germany, Poland, Spain can easily do with 7 characters.

It really defeats the most important purpose of numberplate being displayed on a car, which is purely for being able to read it quickly from running away car. It's much harder to read place with 10 characters compared to 6 character plate.

Zoney

CiniO wrote: »

Imo it's broken because it wasted space on a number plate, unnecessarily using too many characters.

F.e. first digit on vast majority of cars currently in the country is 0 or 1. That's a waste of space.
Second digit is properly used, but then again thrid digit can be only 1 or 2 which is another total waste of space.
Then we have up to 2 letters to describe county which we only have 26 of here so one letter would do.
And after that we only use digits for consecutive numbers, while we could use letters as well.


In short, Ireland is small country with between 2 and 3 million vehicles registered in service, but uses number plates with 9 to 10 characters, with possibility of soon reaching 11 characters on a number plate, while much bigger countries like UK, Germany, Poland, Spain can easily do with 7 characters.

It really defeats the most important purpose of numberplate being displayed on a car, which is purely for being able to read it quickly from running away car. It's much harder to read place with 10 characters compared to 6 character plate.

Is it really harder to read though? Surely it's helpful that the year and county aren't too complexly coded.

So actually, people only have to remember a usually 4-5 digit serial number, plus two chunks of info easily memorized, year and county. The reg suits people more than machines, we don't separately read each character.

Two codes per year is a bit silly but actually somewhat mitigates the rush for the newest year plate.

Might actually help to split D reg into the four local authority areas though?

CiniO

Zoney wrote: »

Is it really harder to read though? Surely it's helpful that the year and county aren't too complexly coded.

So actually, people only have to remember a usually 4-5 digit serial number, plus two chunks of info easily memorized, year and county. The reg suits people more than machines, we don't separately read each character.

It is really harder to read.
Whan you are reading from a plate that is driving away, the less characters the bigger change you'll read that all.

I'm not saying that current year - county - number is hard to remember.
But number plate being easy to remember is meaningless if you can't read it in a first place due to having 10 characters plate like 152-WX-43942 or something.

To be honest, for Ireland plates like LL-N-LL would do. (L - letter, N - number).
That's 5 characters, and gives over 4.5 million combinations, so more than actually amount of cars on the roads.

AB-4-WE
RT-2-OY
DU-7-QP

Plates like that would suffice.

shaunr68

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18 wrote: »

I'm 27 and have bought 5 cars in my life. No one here has actually given me a legitimate reason as to they the year is a genuine thing to consider when buying a car.

Considering the unwillingness of insurers to offer cover on vehicles over 15 years old, along with rip-off premiums demanded from owners of older cars, I'd say that age is a very important consideration when buying a used car.

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18

shaunr68 wrote: »

Considering the unwillingness of insurers to offer cover on vehicles over 15 years old, along with rip-off premiums demanded from owners of older cars, I'd say that age is a very important consideration when buying a used car.

Again, that info could easily be displayed on a chart behind the windscreen on the forecourt.

Why flaunt it on a plate?

thierry14

I love the depreciation

Keep the year

uck51js9zml2yt

The whole idea of the current system is that people could remember the year and county along with the colour.
It was to help law enforcement identify a car when needed easily.

Saw a dealer yesterday with no reg plates on any of his used cars.
I wouldn't waste my time going there to look at a car. I don't want to be always asking how old is is.

shaunr68

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18 wrote: »

Again, that info could easily be displayed on a chart behind the windscreen on the forecourt.

Why flaunt it on a plate?

Why leave it to the whim of a motor dealer to decide whether or not to advertise the age of the vehicle, or perhaps to keep quiet and try to pass a car off as something it isn't?

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18

shaunr68 wrote: »

Why leave it to the whim of a motor dealer to decide whether or not to advertise the age of the vehicle, or perhaps to keep quiet and try to pass a car off as something it isn't?

And again, the dealer would have to honestly display this info. Lying about it would obviously be an offense. This isn’t Wormwood Motors.

L'prof

The way I decide on a car is

Make & model
Year
Mileage & Value

How do you tell how old a car is if it’s not on the plate? Too easy to deceive people if you ask me

OldMrBrennan83

This post has been deleted.

mel.b

Number plates in Victoria, Australia are 6 long. They were ABC-nnn (with n=number). As they were issued in order you had a vague idea of if it was a new car or not. They ran out of those combibations a couple of yrs ago and plates are now naa.naa with n =number & a=letter. I think they are still issued sequentially with 1 being the first number used. I personally find the 1 and I when they are on plates together too similar but maybe i just need new glasses!

Colonel Claptrap

CiniO wrote: »

It is really harder to read.
Whan you are reading from a plate that is driving away, the less characters the bigger change you'll read that all.

I'm not saying that current year - county - number is hard to remember.
But number plate being easy to remember is meaningless if you can't read it in a first place due to having 10 characters plate like 152-WX-43942 or something.

To be honest, for Ireland plates like LL-N-LL would do. (L - letter, N - number).
That's 5 characters, and gives over 4.5 million combinations, so more than actually amount of cars on the roads.

AB-4-WE
RT-2-OY
DU-7-QP

Plates like that would suffice.

Maybe its just me, but if a car is speeding away from a crime I'm going to partially remember a 2015 wexford reg a hell of a lot faster than DU-7-QP.

When I login to my email I use a passphrase rather than an alphanumeric string of meaningless digits. It's just easier to recall.

shaunr68

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18 wrote: »

And again, the dealer would have to honestly display this info. Lying about it would obviously be an offense. This isn’t Wormwood Motors.

An again, why leave it to the whim of a dealer? We have already established that the year is an important piece of information. What benefit would hiding this data have for the motorist? Are there any other details usually prominently displayed on the vehicle that should be removed just to deny some important information to the public, make and model perhaps?

Toyotafanboi

So are we saying if we took the year off the registration plate that dealers would sell a 2014 Golf with 30,000kms for €15k and a 2017 Golf with 30,000kms for €15k because they are both the same?

Nah. Just because the year is gone off the plate, a newer vehicle will still command the same premium it does now. I don't think taking the year off the plate will do anything, or at least to cars on the market less than ten years old. It may level the playing field with older cars but the difference is minimal there anyway.

bear1

Italy has the city and year but it's very sporadic.
I believe that when you buy a new car the dealer asks if you want the information on the plate and you can agree for both, only the year, only the city (province) or neither.
So it would be 2 letters then 3 numbers followed by 2 letters. Then at the far top right corner the year and directly below the province.

Kintarō Hattori

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18 wrote: »

I'm 27 and have bought 5 cars in my life. No one here has actually given me a legitimate reason as to they the year is a genuine thing to consider when buying a car.

The ability to actually insure it. Bit of an issue when some of the major insurers actively refuse to quote cars older than 10 years.
Tax- bit of a difference between paying €1000+ a year and say sub €300.

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

The ability to actually insure it. Bit of an issue when some of the major insurers actively refuse to quote cars older than 10 years.
Tax- bit of a difference between paying €1000+ a year and say sub €300.

Do you not think that insurers would have access to such data through the registration? Why do you want the year prominently displayed on the plate?
CiniO in the only one here talking sense.

Kleine Hundin

I walked into a dealer to buy a used car in Germany. None of the cars had plates. I had to read the spec with includes month and year of first registered. To take the car on a test drive I had to book it in advance and was given dealer temporary plate that was valid for maybe a matter of hours and reused for another car later.

When I bought the car it was registered to the city I live in and I could pick my preferred plate number as long as it was available and begin with my city code.

I can keep my number when I replace the car.

I bought 9 month old car but totally get the new car feel. And why should it age a car just so it was registered in the previous calendar year?

I think Germans don't like to flaunt and are not fixated just the year.

If you look at the reg of Mercedes cars in their marketing material they all begin with S- MB-
S for Stuttgart their home town and MB you can guess what's that for.

A lot of companies will register blocks for their company cars/vehicles with the company initials or name.

Let's have 67 WX 991. Format is easy breaking the numbers up by country makes it easy to remember. And numbers should be random or choose by the owner.

Doltanian

Its one of the few things we did right in this country and despite all the uproar about adding 131 to the 13 plate that even made it a better system as it narrows down the age to six months, new car snobs of course are unhappy as their new car is only new for six months. These are the same people who are on finance but won't admit it and think they are better than everyone else.

The Irish car reg system in my opinion is the best in world and should be left alone.

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18

Doltanian wrote: »

Its one of the few things we did right in this country.......
The Irish car reg system in my opinion is the best in world and should be left alone.

So many people have said this and none of them have given any rational reason as to WHY it is good. How does having the year prominently displayed on the plate make it a "good system"?

Kleine Hundin

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18 wrote: »

Doltanian wrote: »

Its one of the few things we did right in this country.......
The Irish car reg system in my opinion is the best in world and should be left alone.

So many people have said this and none of them have given any rational reason as to WHY it is good.

In fairness
1. Know how old the car was
2. Where it was in first registered
3. How early or late in year it was registered
4. Feel an affinity or prejudice against a car solely on its C reg
5. Play spot the new reg

Franciskus Gayelord Petulah 18

Kleine Hundin wrote: »

In fairness
1. Know how old the car was
2. Where it was in first registered
3. How early or late in year it was registered
4. Feel an affinity or prejudice against a car solely on its C reg
5. Play spot the new reg

You forgot

6. Refinance your car every year to get a **** Paddy spec so you can drive around with 182 on your plates and show off.