D.R. wrote:

It is purely a mistaken belief by operators that a Northern Irish
registration disguises the age of a vehicle when it does the exact opposite
and highlights its elderly state.

The contract for a lot of the top tour operators says that the vehicle
used must "Not *appear* more than three years old". (My emphasis).

Given this, if an operator takes the age related plate off, and puts a
dateless plate on, then the vehicle can be used on that contract for an
extra couple of years, as long as the maintenance and cleaning are kept
up. It almost doubles the useful life of what is a high cost, and still
perfectly serviceable, asset. As the passengers can't immediately tell
the age by just looking at the plate, they're none the wiser, the tour
operator's happy because there are no complaints about the ancient,
decrepit, three and a half year old coach their passengers are riding
in, and the coach operator's happy, because he's got double the use out
of the vehicle.

Incidentally, doing this also reduces the cost of providing the coach,
so the cost of the holiday is kept down, so everybody wins. Modern
coaches are designed to last over twenty years in service as against the
ten years when the tour operators' policies were put in place, so nobody
loses.

Incidentally, the operator I work for puts dateless plates on all
vehicles (Coaches *and* buses) when they come in new from the
maufacturers, so don't assume that anything with a dateless plate is old
and decrepit.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.