Irish car registration plates - who hates or loves them?

Hellrazer · 08-07-2022 05:37PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119309670#Comment_119309670

Instead of just "222" why not just 22-d-12345 - we dont need 3 digits for another 78 years :)

But youre right the trade would be well against it. but maybe with a small symbol denoting which half of the year its registered "might" persuade them.

Juran · 08-07-2022 05:39PM

I vote drop the year and the county on the Irish reg and apply random numbers and letters. Ireland is too small for county plates .. its not like the states where you have state plates, which are cool looking I think we have to admit.

In germany the first letter (max 2 letters) is the registration office location, eg. M for Munich, S for Stuggart, HE for Heidleberg. If you relocate, you re-register your car. If you sell your cars, you remove the plates and bring them back to the registry office .. no lie. Its a pain of a system. The only good part of it, if you wish,they allow you to pick the rest of the reg which has to be letters and numbers eg Bart Simpson born in 1980, living in Munich could pick M:BS1980 as his plate, unless anyone else in Munich has already picked that reg. You can also request a random number & letter than means nothing.

Up until around 15 years ago, france used to have reg number per district (like county), you had to change car reg everytime you moved county. Now you get a random number which stays with the car forever, but at the side of the plate, you can chose to add your county in small print, like the dealer name, but I dont believe its part of the official car reg number.

Back in the mid 80's, county councils were saying they were running out of numbers/letters, right? Is that why we changed in 1987?

What would make the Dept Transport change to another system at this stage ? A European plate system ?

Miscreant · 08-07-2022 06:52PM

I think the current system is great. Easy to understand the year, county and number of vehicles registered up to that point. There has to be some sort of registration system in place, so why not this one?

If the EU come out with a common system, it would probably have the Country of Origin and some sequence of numbers in it anyway, so what difference would that make?

This is a circular debate anyway. Each country is free to choose whatever way they register vehicles and show that registration (within a defined set of rules, I imagine). Ours is year, county and number. I don't see that changing for the foreseeable future as it works very well and there is no wider public debate, petition or movement to have it changed, like it or not. People have more to worry about than the characters on a piece of plastic or metal on the rear and/or front of their vehicle.

Gadgetman496 · 08-07-2022 07:27PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119310377#Comment_119310377

Yep, originally that was perfect, simple as you said, but then they had to go and change it from

The year, county, and number of vehicles registered up to that point.

To

The year, part of the year, county, and number of vehicles registered up to that point.

Anyone who believes it wasn't done to boost the coffers of both the motor industry and the government is either involved in either or both or they are simply delusional.

spacetweek · 09-07-2022 09:57AM

There is no doubt the change was made in order to benefit the motor industry - this was made quite explicit at the time.

Because you can tell how old an Irish car is from the reg number, Irish people mostly bought new cars at the start of the year. The 1 and 2 were added in order to split the demand between January and July. No conspiracy here, it makes a lot of sense.

spacetweek · 09-07-2022 12:46PM

Explainer here for the old pre-1987 system here. Total mess IMHO.

https://monaghan.ie/motortax/vintage-registrations/

Note that re-reges of pre-87 cars sometimes grandfathered in the new system so in the 80s/90s I remember occasionally seeing 84-D, 86-D etc.)

hoodie6029 · 09-07-2022 09:17PM

They are still using the old (original) registration system in the North. They never changed over. The rest of the UK left it in 1962-ish.

With the lower population in the North never ran out of regs.

09-07-2022 09:24PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119306267#Comment_119306267

This I don't understand. I never see in Italy a germany style plate, only ireland.

09-07-2022 09:30PM

Whatever about the number plates, the fact we’re forced to display a couple of pieces of circular paper on the windscreen to prove we’ve paid for something is beyond archaic. Wish they’d scrap that and move to electronic like the UK.

spuddy · 10-07-2022 09:29AM

The plate is a unique identifier for the vehicle, it doesn't need to be anything more.

The reason we have the year on ours is because of successful lobbying by the SIMI over the years, seen again when the YY1/2 format was adopted. It's good for their members, encouraging people to buy for the new plate, which you frequently see them advertising about.

Ireland doesn't manufacture cars, so why we're incentivising sales with our current system is highly questionable. The vast majority of that spend leaves the country. If the concern genuinely was about the spike of sales in January, removing the year is the obvious solution, as sales would be spread across the year.

One thing drilled into me when I first started working is that you shouldn't criticise something unless you have an alternative proposal, so here it is. Other European countries have adopted a XX-###-XX format, Italy and France are two that spring to mind. I've noticed the same system in use on the Ukrianian cars too we see around these days.

I hope we do something similar but wouldn't hold my breath. Perhaps an EU wide system may come one day. For now, well done SIMI.

spuddy · 11-07-2022 07:24PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119314999#Comment_119314999

...and imagine how much is spent administering the whole operation, notifying owners, designing new discs every year, printing them, posting them out etc. Wonder if there are any stats for how much of what's collected goes in collecting the tax?

An even simpler solution, would be to simply abolish the need for motor tax, no technology even needed. Highly unlikely in the current environment though.

WJL · 11-07-2022 07:31PM

In 1991 when the European flag was added I thought it looked the business!! I was 15.

spacetweek · 11-07-2022 08:49PM

"An even simpler solution, would be to simply abolish the need for motor tax, no technology even needed. "

Why would you do that, how would the roads be maintained? "Abolish taxes" is a fun idea in theory but the practice is horrible.

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000 · 11-07-2022 08:54PM

I hate them. I hate the fact they've the year on them. It's the first thing anyone ever looks at and a huge deal is made out of it.

brokenangel · 11-07-2022 08:54PM

It’s a number plate, that’s it. A way to identify a car

Bigger issues in ireland to resolve than a number plate

adaminho · 11-07-2022 09:07PM

https://youtu.be/HWP50JyuVcQ

Interesting video on the US system

Juran · 11-07-2022 09:13PM

Ask my mother what type of car was he/she driving, she will reply '09 reg' ... but no idea of make, model or colour!

Exactly why I hate them, your attention is drawn mainly to the year.

spacetweek · 11-07-2022 09:17PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119323642#Comment_119323642

That's proof they're a good system, it's really easy to remember the reg number compared to other countries

11-07-2022 10:01PM

I think we have the best system in the world.

3 digits for the year do look gaudy though.

Montage of Feck · 12-07-2022 11:03AM

If the reg year wasn't so obvious maybe sales would be more spread out over the year with higher specs and options purchased instead of just buying for the new reg.

TheDriver · 12-07-2022 11:10AM

There's certain county pairs which limit sales eg KY reg cars in Cork are unpopular with folk preferring to buy any county but KY. UK imports helped as you could register to any county.

Personally, I hate the split year since we moved into 2s

CiniO · 13-07-2022 01:27AM

I think Irish number plates are way too long with too many characters.

I see plenty of posters here advocating the system saying they are easy to remember. Well - yes - year might be relatively easy to remember as that's the first thing you see. Then county is probably even easier to remember, as lots of people would just associate it with the area they know/been to/etc. But then when it comes to following consecutive number, then it's probably one of the most difficult thing to remember.

Also - I don't really think there's that many occasions you'd need to remember the number plate.

In case of emergency (f.e. after hit and run) most important is actually being able to read the reg number of the car running away than remembering it.

Once you read that, you can quickly put it into your phone as voice note, etc...

And problem here is, that reading Irish number plates is hard. They are long, consist of plenty of characters, so font is pretty small, and Irish county name on the top make font size even smaller.

Believe me - it's much easier to read UK plate consisting of just 7 large characters occupying whole plate (i.e. SM66POE), then Irish small font 11 character 162-KE-124834 from car running away.

whisky_galore · 13-07-2022 07:49AM

Hate the year system, just encourages conspicuous consumption and keeping up with the Joneses behaviour.

Pointless that the format isn't enforced, people getting tiny plates, faux German plates, yellow plates, a free for all.

The ridiculous amount of digits for classics, like bar code lengths.

The county tribal rivalry thing on plates is puerile.

Juran · 13-07-2022 11:24AM

Saw my first 222 reg today.

I'd love to know what our european neighbors and the british think of the Irish car reg system.

I know the UK stuck in the year if you register the car the first 6 months eg. For 2022, it would read BA22CSN, then after July, it would read BA72CSN. The 72 is code for 2022.

I remember when they brought that out around 10 years ago, the purpose to generate sales in January, as UK new car sales occured around August. I know you can figure out the year, but i like thr way its not obvious and in a way hidden within the letters.

13-07-2022 11:42AM

I like them, though not so keen on the extra digit for year. Here in the North we use the first letter to represent year and the next 2 letters to represent county. However the first letter isn't constant per year through all counties, if you see what I mean. For example, both IB (old) and XZ (new) represent County Armagh. So MIB is County Armagh in the late 80s / early 90s (exact year escapes me) and MXZ is County Armagh 2018. So if you know the numbering / lettering system per County you know the year. Your system is so much easier. Not being able to re-register if you want I find strange though.

VikingG · 13-07-2022 11:46AM

The beauty of the system is that it is simple - like all good design.

Juran · 16-07-2023 02:34PM

Anyone finding the car reg numbers since 2020 seem to all look the same ?

231-D, 221-D, 211-D, 232-D, 222-D, 212-D, 201-D

I wish they'd just change it to a random numbering system.

spuddy · 16-07-2023 07:13PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119330736#Comment_119330736

And our system would be even simpler without the year, better for the average punter's wallet too.

Miscreant · 16-07-2023 07:14PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120858248#Comment_120858248

They look different to me.

JohnC. · 16-07-2023 07:50PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120859796#Comment_120859796

No, the year will still be a factor even without it being on the plate. They don't have the year, but I see UK people talking about "[x]-plate" cars all the time.

Irish car registration plates - who hates or loves them?

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