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How Do Car Registration Plates Work and What Do They Mean?

The first number plates were of basic materials and consisted of an extremely elementary numbering system, starting at 1 and increasing as the amount of cars on the roads increased. The number plate system is much more sophisticated today, as each plate is compiled of different elements depending on where the vehicle has been registered.

The number plate is broken down in to four main parts. The first part is optional and is an Country Identifier badge that sits on the far left of the plate before any numbers or characters. This is a blue flag with the GB in the middle with a Euro surround. The next part of the plate is made up of two characters that indicate when the plate is registered. The first letter indicates the region and the second indicated the local registration office for example the first part of the plate that would read ‘AP05′ is broken down so that ‘A’ indicates that he plates region is East Anglia and the ‘P’ would show that the local office is Norwich. The next two characters are numbers and these indicate what year the vehicle was registered.

The ‘05′ shows that the vehicle was registered in the March of 2005, however if the plates numbers on this part was ‘55′ than that would show that the plate was registered in September of 2005. The last section of the plate contains three random letters that have no importance to the car itself. Any three letter combinations that are deemed offensive, in any language are not issued to any vehicles.

There is a standard format in which the plates are created as well. All number plates use one style and size of font and are a black text upon a white (for the front of the car) and yellow (for the back of the car) background.

Even this system is not fool proof though. Many plates have been cloned and used on similar makes, models and coloured vehicles as to avoid prosecution by the law. The owners of the cloned plates have been caught speeding through safety cameras and the fine has then been dispatched to the owner of the genuine plates.

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