Where do you get your official UK License Plates from -- Halfords?!

I read that and it seems that they have tried to make things simple but it has become complicated.

The U.K. numbering systems certainly seem to have some drawbacks. 

The year-letter system (suffix from 1963 - 1983, prefix from 1983 - 2001) probably seemed like a good idea when it was introduced, but with the huge increase in the  number of cars on the road since the sixties it became rather wasteful of numbers.

For example, you could have had an area start issuing numbers from K1 AST in August 1992,  then when they reached K999 AST they'd issue K1 BST through to K999 BST, then K1 CST through K999 CST, and so on. But if by July 1992 they only gotten as far as, say, K721 PST, then all the remaining numbers in that series from K722 PST through K999 YST were effectively wasted because from August 1993 they'd start a new series from L1 AST.

That didn't happen prior to the year-letter system, because the local councils (which handled registrations at that time) would simply carry on with the next number in sequence until they ran out, then get a new code assigned for their area when necessary.

While the new format from 2001 makes an attempt to show the approximate registration area in a more memorable way, I have to wonder why it was even considered necessary to maintain this method of identification.  Assigning letter codes to districts made sense in a pre-computer age when registrations were handled locally, but with everything now on a centralized DVLA database, I don't see that it serves a useful purpose any longer.   Remember that U.K. cars don't get a new number when moving to another district, so that code shows only where it was registered originally, not necessarily where it is based now.

The same goes for continuing with the age identifiers.  Why do we need the car's year identified on the plate anyway?  It's not as if it can't be determined in other ways.  Besides, with personalized registrations and what DVLA calls "cherished transfers" (where you can have the number from your old car transferred to your new car), it isn't an automatic indication of age in all cases anyway.

The other thing which makes the U.K. system subject to having to come up with ever-more convoluted formats every so often is the basic rule that once a number has been issued it can never be re-used, except in a few very restricted situations.  Think of the thousands of numbers in the AB 1234, ABC 123, and ABC 123A formats which have been dormant for decades.   

I wonder if I came in with a temporary import (tourist) car and had no front licence plate, because it was not required in the US, how far would I get?
I posed a hypothetical question to a policeman about tinted windows and he said a car belonging to a tourist is required to comply with the UK law.

Strictly speaking, that last statement is true.  However, the law does not require visiting vehicles to comply with all the requirements which are applicable to cars registered in the U.K.   

To take your example of having no front license plate, so long as the car would be legal in its home country/state, it's legal here.   So if your state only requires a rear plate, that's all you need when visiting the U.K. (and the stickers must be up to date, etc.). 

Unfortunately, not even all traffic police here seem to understand the rules.  I once saw an argument on a police forum on just this issue where one cop was insisting that it was illegal for a tourist to drive without a front plate even when everybody else was telling him no.   

The other basic requirements for visiting vehicles are covered by the various international road traffic conventions, to which the U.K. is a signatory.  They demand certain very basic things, such as good tires, mustn't have red lights on the front or white on the rear, and so on, but any vehicle which is legally roadworthy in any U.S. state would meet the requirements easily.

What you are not subject to as a visitor are all the precise rules laid down in the Construction & Use Regulations for U.K.-registered vehicles.  So you are not required to have a current M.o.T. certificate, you are not required to display a British tax disk, red turn signals on the rear are legal regardless of vehicle age even though modern U.K. cars are required to have amber, etc.

Now I wonder about a French tourist car and yellow headlights?

Maybe they don't have yellow headlights any longer so its a mute point?

France abandoned the requirement for yellow headlights some years ago (early 1990s, I believe), so all new cars there have been fitted with white headlights since then. 

Actually, on that specific point, the U.K. C&U Regulations specify that headlights must be white or yellow, so in fact it would be perfectly legal to have yellow headlights on a U.K.-registered car if you wanted them.   I've seen at least one old Citroen running around my local area which still has its yellow headlights.

But even if the C&U Regs. didn't allow yellow on U.K. cars, the French tourists would still have been legal since those C&U Regs. don't apply to visiting vehicles.

Hiya

yep, provided you have all the relevant documentation, places like Halfords will make up number plates for you, seems a few posts cover that element already.

My number plate is a standard 'Year letter' - '3 digits' - '3 Letters' style plate..  which just happens to 'resemble' a swear/slang word! 

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

My number plate is a standard 'Year letter' - '3 digits' - '3 Letters' style plate..  which just happens to 'resemble' a swear/slang word! 

There have been several letter combinations which have been skipped over the years where they were deemed unsuitable.

One of the Norfolk district codes was (still is, on pre-2001 cars) EX, and it seems that all three-letter plate series skipped straight from REX to TEX.  Similarly, in the AV series originally assigned to Aberdeenshire they skipped a range to avoid having any LAV numbers.

BF was assigned to Dorset way back in 1904, and apparently it resulted in so many protests that the series was withdrawn.  It seems it was finally used again from about 1960, by which time the numbers would have been ABF 123, BBF 123, etc. rather than the simple BF 1234 of the early part of the century.

The OD code in Devon always skipped GOD numbers, and according to my lists KIL was never issued in the IL series for Co. Fermanagh, Northern Ireland (presumably because Kil is the Gaelic for church).

In the current (2001 onward) system, the initial letter combinations FO, FU, NO, and WO are listed as "banned."      

Now that the last three digits of the serial "number" are actually letters under the new system, every area will potentially face have SEX, GOD etc. at some point.  I don't know whether they are still skipping those, but of course they will now just be a few specific numbers within a local series rather than an entire block of numbers as before.