Did you know DVLA ban number plates every year?
Yes, you read it correct Driver & Licencing Agency in United Kingdom DVLA ban certain number plates every year to make sure they were not offensive or inappropriate. As we have seen in the past, certain number plates which is made of Alphabets and Numerics can create offensive words. This article reminds our drivers to be careful and avoid any misconduct.
Many people still don’t know that every number plates have some meaning and you can quickly identify region, age of the vehicle by looking at first 4 characters (usually 2 Alphabets, followed by 2 numbers). The first alphabets show the region, for example, E for Essex and second letter is usually the DVLA local office. The numbers followed by those alphabets shows the age of the car which means if the number plate is ES18 _ _ _, it means the registration plate is from Essex and the age of the vehicle is 2018. DVLA also use 68 to recognise the age of the vehicle in 2018. The last three characters are always random.
You can use this website to identify your registration plate: https://www.newreg.co.uk/dvla-number-plate-identifiers/
According to DVLA Spokesman in an interview with Express.co.uk, “The vast majority of registration numbers are made available, but the Agency holds back any combinations that may cause offence, embarrassment or are in poor taste. Many people enjoy displaying a personalised registration number and there are over 50 million registrations available on our website, www.dvlaregistrations.direct.gov.uk with almost endless possibilities of combinations to suit a person’s taste, interests and budget with prices starting at just £250.”
According to Carbuyer.co.uk, some of the prohibited plates include “JE55 US, OS55 AMA, AD13 CTS”. In addition to the above mentioned, recently we have also seen some political plates were banned or restricted. These restricted number plates include letters such as “BNP” or “EU”. E.g. EU16 OUT
2019 circulation of vehicles number plates will start on 1st March, 2019 and it will be applied to new cars until August 31, 2019 (express.co.uk)
Be aware of this issue and avoid any fine. “Those caught using illegal or misspaced number plate fonts can be fined up to £1,000 for the offence and will fail its MOT.” (nationalnumbers.co.uk)
For further information or read more visit: http://www.driverlinkmagazine.co.uk/
