Personalised Number Plate Information

NUMBER PLATES:

A number plate owner has had their number plate withdrawn by the DVLA after a member of the public complained to police that it spelt 'jihad'.

The Ford Fiesta was driven around with the personalised plate for six months before it was reported to officials.

Licence bosses have now banned the plate which was written JH11 HAD and sent the owner a replacement.

The car was reported after it was spotted driving around Newport, Gwent.

One woman who reported it to police after she saw it being driven in her home city said: "How can this be allowed with everything that is going on in the world at the moment?

"I have told the police about it and they said they would make a note of it.

"Surely this plate cannot be legal?"

A DVLA spokesman said the personalised plate had been bought in October last year and had "slipped through the net" of offensive registrations.

The spokesman said: "We try to identify all combinations that may cause offence, and on the rare occasion where potentially offensive numbers slip through the net, steps are taken to withdraw the number.

"As soon as we became aware of this last week we withdrew it and would have then sent a replacement plate."

Plates resembling the word 'jihad', which literally means striving or struggling in Arabic, and is associated with the concept of 'holy war', are unavailable, for example plates starting with JE and ending HAD.

Others which are banned include HO57 AGE, a close match to "hostage", and the chain of characters O54 MA because of its resemblance to the name Osama.

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It should be noted that there are no restrictions on using a vanity or cherished registration on a car that is newer than the original date of the registration plate, but it is prohibited to transfer a registration that is newer than the vehicle it is used on. This is to prevent the transfer of newer registrations to older vehicles as a measure to protect consumers.

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A high-end four-wheeler carrying an ‘MLA’ sticker was spotted parked in Prakashnagar, Begumpet with a fancy registration plate carrying the number AP2 AB 2222.

The vehicle was spotted by Mr Hari Satya Sandeep, a social media user who often shares pictures of traffic rule violation on the Facebook page and Twitter handles of the Hyderabad traffic police. Mr Sandeep said the car with MLA sticker was not parked properly and its fancy number plate was a violation of the rule.

“When I checked its challans on the Hyderabad traffic police e-challan portal there were no pending challans. They may have cleared the challans but in that case they would have changed the number plate if they were fined for it,” Mr Sandeep said.

Asked about this, Dr V. Ravinder, joint commissioner Hyderabad traffic police, said, “As we have received the complaint we will look into the matter and will take action accordingly.”

Mr Vinod Kanumala, chief functionary of the Indian Federation of Road Safety, said, “Abuse of rules by LAs is very common. The law makers are the primary law breakers.” He said he had noticed a barcode number plate on a car in the city.

Number plate 2 of category 1 was the biggest attraction at the Abu Dhabi Police’s open vehicle number plates auction on Saturday, sold for Dh10.1 million.
The popular auction generated a revenue of more than Dh55 million, auctioning 60 distinguished Abu Dhabi number plates at Emirates Palace hotel.

Abu Dhabi Police, in cooperation with Emirates Auction, held the public auction on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of its establishment.

Organised by Emirates Auction, the auction listed the numbers on the company’s website, including five double-digit plates, 15 three-digit plates, 19 four-digit and 17 five-digit plates.

Number plate 2 was the only one-digit licence plate in the auction, and was the first one-digit Category 1 number plate sold in a public auction.

Other number plates featured in the auction were 10, 60, 333, 600, 999, 1000, 1111, 5050, 6000, 6060, 6666, 9090, 9999, 10000, 55555, 60000, 66666.

WOULD you pay more than $150,000 for a piece of metal measuring just 19cm by 13cm?

That’s the length to which collectors of historic South Australian licence plates are prepared to go to secure their piece of SA motoring history.

The 17 historic SA plates to go under the hammer have reserves ranging from $2999 for SA “467-470’’ to $120,000 for SA “90’’, right up to $149,999 for SA “29’’.

Stewart Kay, proprietor of Historic Plates, said licence plates had proven to be great investments.

“In terms of their metallic value, forget gold and platinum, it’s the most expensive metal in the world,” he said.

“Some of the three-digit numbers we have ranging from $17,500 to $22,000 – and we’ve sold some three-digit numbers for more than $50,000 previously – they were $1500 only in the late 2000s, so they’ve increased quite significantly in that time.

“We find people are using them in their self-managed super fund or to finish off their collectable car.

“If you’ve just bought the latest $400,000 Porsche or Mercedes or whatever, a $20,000 numberplate is the only way to finish it off.”

SA Government records show the “29” plate was first issued in 1907 to Dr E.V Fooks of Gawler, who registered it on an 8hp De Dion car.

“The reserve is $150,000 and we’ve arrived at that on past sales, but interestingly a couple of months ago, the number 29 Sydney plate sold in Sydney for $750,000,” Mr Kay said.

“All of our plates usually sell online or the following day but we offer all our plates at a market correct reserve. But under auction, anything is possible.

“The days of a $1 million South Australian numberplate is not too far off.”

So what else could you spend $150,000 on in South Australia?

According to realestate.com.au, $149,000 will buy you a three-bedroom home on 615sqm at Elizabeth East. For $149,990 you could drive away in a new 2017 Maserati Levante 3L 6 cylinder SUV.

And if you’d prefer a holiday, $150,000 will buy a couple 34 nights in the exclusive Osprey Pavillion of Kangaroo Island’s luxurious Southern Ocean Lodge.

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Diplomatic Plates 'D' what are they?

Diplomatic plates

Since 1979 cars operated by foreign embassies, high commissions, consular staff, and various international organisations have been given plates with a distinguishing format of three numbers, one letter, three numbers. The letter is D for diplomats or X for accredited non-diplomatic staff. The first group of three numbers identifies the country or organisation to whom the plate has been issued, the second group of three numbers is a serial number, starting at 101 for diplomats (although some embassies were erroneously issued 100), 400 for non-diplomatic staff of international organisations, and 700 for consular staff. Thus, for example, 101 D 101 identifies the first plate allocated to the Afghanistan embassy, 900 X 400 is the first plate allocated to the Commonwealth Secretariat.

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Dubai: U66, Z777 and M2222 will be among 80 unique number plates up for grabs at the Roads and Transport Authority’s (RTA) 94th open auction on March 11.
Registration for the year’s first auction, which will be held at Emirates Towers’ Godolphin Ballroom, will open from March 4.

The last two auctions of last year generated huge interests with single digit plate D5 going for Dh33 million in October, while the plate number Q2 on offer in December went unsold despite massive expectations.

“The recent open auctions saw huge footfall from various community segments. This has promoted us to offer another chance for the public to engage in positive bidding for their fancied numbers in various codes,” Sultan Al Marzouqi, Director of Vehicle Licensing at RTA.

The numbers on offer range from two and three digits to four and five digits, including S90000 and U66.

During the auction, plate N572 will be on offer through a draw for the participants.

“Interested bidders can register in RTA’s Customers Happiness Centres at Umm Al Romool, Deira and Al Barsha. They can also register through RTA’s website (www.rta.ae), or Drivers and Vehicles app, and each participant is required to have a traffic file in Dubai,” said Al Marzouqi.

Registration for the auction will remain open until the day of the auction, and bidding will start at 4.30pm.

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Since the dvla introduced the bsau145d legislation it has been increasingly difficult for motorists to obtain number plates with anything other than legal spacing.

There is however another line of argument for the defence of the serial mis spacer. They say that a number plate that has been altered to make a word or a name is much more memorable in the event of an incident.
They also argue that the dvla blatantly auction registration numbers that would be virtually worthless without mis spacing.

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