On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 19:43:54 -0000, "Martin Underwood"
wrote:

But once there would be far more offices, each with its own mark(s): now
they've merged the marks so you cannot tell so accurately where a car was
registered.

Perhaps not - but the new style, similar to the German plates (though
not quite as well) is more memorable, as the codes do bear some kind
of resemblance to the area they are associated with, and there are few
enough of them for the lot to be memorable.

Thus, the only "random" parts of the plate (from the point of view of
a layman) are the second letter and latter 3 letters, whereas on the
old style the age letter would probably be quite memorable, but then
followed by up to 3 random numbers and 3 random letters.

The place of initial registration, after all, is not really that
useful a piece of information unless you wish to buy the car - and you
can get much more detail from the V5 if you do.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
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