Personalised Number Plate Information

NUMBER PLATES:

When you key in the vehicle number there is an immediate response which shows its make, model, age, colour, insurance status and owner. Databases know all that for every vehicle, instantly.

It’s amazing how law-abiding everyone becomes when the whole lot is known, and joined up. Without exception. In a blink. And with very little time cost or inconvenience.

So why can’t your PIN be like your number plate, holding an interconnected record of everything anyone has a right to know about you. No more forms and questionnaires and endless administrative complication and time cost-for a bank account, a mobile phone, a car log book, a licence, a permit, a title deed, service utilities, passport renewal or whatever.

Just key in your PIN and a password that gives your permission, and any supplier will have instant and complete access to the (selective) information the law entitles them to.

Computers do all the crunching and privacy categorising, and keep a permanent digital record to guarantee an audit trail that will keep everybody honest-including the administrators.

And if things can be joined up per person, they can also be joined up for all the people and provide a treasure chest of national statistics for planners and the general public.

As a non-contentious example, we could know the total number of vehicles, their class proportions, age - and anything else about them of use, interest or importance at the push of a button.

There are lots of reasons why we need to know more about our national fleet of vehicles with four wheels or more. But robust data is somewhere between scant, inconsistent and non-existent.

We have to resort to extrapolation, a bit like this: In the past decade, all Kenya’s main motor companies have sold about 140,000 new vehicles of every shape and size from town runabouts to prime mover trucks.

That figure represents about 10 per cent (maybe) of today’s total national road-going fleet of things with four wheels or more. The average age of that portion is about 5 years.

Over the same period, there have been about 860,000 used imports mostly aged about 8 years on arrival.

The average age of that contingent today is therefore around 13 years. Put both groups together and you have a million vehicles with an average age of about 12 years.

The rest of the fleet about 400,000 - was already here 10 years ago, having arrived in much the same new-used proportions. So that segment’s average age was also around 12, and is therefore now around 22.

With some slightly trickier arithmetic, we can therefore estimate that the overall average age of all the vehicles in Kenya today is about 15 years. That’s not a precise fact, but it is a strongly indicative probability.

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If you are buying the plates separately then you'll need to go to a registered number plate supplier to get new number plates for your vehicle. The registered supplier will need proof of your identity, as well as proof that the registration number belongs to you. The number plate supplier will need to see at least one document from each of the lists below. This will allow the number plate supplier to confirm your name, address and entitlement to the registration number. All documents must be original, not copies.

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The RTA announced on Wednesday that customers can now check out both available and unavailable numbers as well as those that are likely to be available in the future.

Sultan Al Marzouqi, director of Vehicle Licensing at the RTA’s Licensing Agency, said: “This service does not only allow customers to enquire and buy the current codes, but also future codes (Up to Z). Customers can log onto RTA’s website (www.rta.ae) by clicking ‘Inquiring about Distinctive Number Plates’ to know about the available numbers and buy them online.”

He added that the system has been developed and programmed to provide information about available and unavailable numbers along with their prices.

The system also enables enquiring about numbers in four different ways: by code, by number of digits, by entering the numbers required, or by the price.

The RTA also offers distinguished number plates through online auction as well as through live auctions, drawing huge interests from enthusiasts with some plates going for millions of dirhams.

Last year, the single-digit plate D5 was auctioned for Dh33 million, the highest priced number in Dubai.

A TOTAL of 58 number plates are due to go under the hammer at Highlands College next week as part of an auction organised by the Infrastructure Department.

During the last two events, the auction raised more than £421,750 with the money going towards buying equipment for Driver and Vehicle Standards – the department’s authority which oversee the registration of the Island’s vehicles.

In 2013 one anonymous individual paid £71,000 for the plate JSY 1.

Infrastructure Minister Eddie Noel said that he was expecting one number plate to receive particular interest from bidders this year.

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By 1932, the available numbers within this scheme were running out, and an extended scheme was introduced. This scheme consisted of three letters and up to three digits, taken from the series AAA 1 to YYY 999. The letters I, Q, and Z were never used, as they were considered too easy to mistake for other letters or numbers or were reserved for special use, such as the use of I and Z for Irish registrations and Q for temporary imports. (After independence, the Republic of Ireland continued to use this scheme until 1986, and Northern Ireland still uses it.)

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T’S happened again – and set a record: Someone paid $745,000 for the numerical NSW plate ‘29’, eclipsing the previous auction record of $689,000 paid for NSW ‘2’ back in 2003.

It also set an Australian auction record for a double-digit number plate, topping the $530,000 paid for the Victorian plate ‘21’ at Shannons Melbourne Winter Auction last July.

Other strong number plate sales were $82,000 paid for NSW ‘9191’ and $35,000 for NSW ‘85758’, taking total sales on the night for the six heritage plates on offer to $956,000.

Classic motorcycles were also hot property, topped by $37,000 paid for an ‘as new’ 1975 Norton Commando Mk3 850cc with just 29km delivery on its odometer, and a 1950s Austin J40 pedal car sold for $9300.

Other impressive results from the auction included a restored 1964 Porsche 356C Coupe which went for $137,000, a restored 1949 48-215 ‘FX’ Holden which commanded $46,000, a 1962 MGA 1600 sports car fetched $52,000 and a stately and exceptionally low mileage Mercedes-Benz 300B ‘Adenauer’ limousine first owned by the Victa lawnmower family sold for $50,000.

As well, a superbly-restored 1970 Ford XY Falcon GT sedan sold for $180,000.

Other News:

A shortage of vehicle number plates has hit the Kenyan market, causing a backlog in the clearance of cars at Mombasa port.

The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) attributed the shortage that started two weeks ago to increased registration of cars that has outpaced supply of number plates.

“Demand is far much higher than supply. There are just too many vehicles being imported into the country, especially second-hand cars,” NTSA director of registration and licensing.

She added that the supply issue will ease after Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, where the number plates are manually made, increases supply.
The law mandates the prisons department to make the plates.

Official data shows that Kenyans bought 15,858 used vehicles in the first quarter of the year, compared to 14,346 units in a similar period of last year, representing a 10.5 per cent growth.

It is mandatory for imported second hand vehicles to be fitted with number plates before leaving the port.

The country imports about 6,000 second hand cars monthly, according to dealers.
Dealers said that the shortage had hit them hard as they were forced to incur storage charges at the port amid cash flow hiccups due to delays as some had taken loans.

“We are incurring heavy storage charges as the cars are detained at the port despite having paid duty and customs clearance cash in advance,” said Charles Munyori, the secretary-general of Kenya Auto Bazaar Association, a lobby for second hand car dealers.

The storage charges are based on the volume of vehicles and the number of days they take at the Mombasa port or at container freight stations.

Industry insiders, however, said the number plate problem normally occurs every time a new registration number comes up as importers delay registration to take advantage of the newest numbers.

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By 1982, the year suffixes had reached Y and so from 1983 onwards the sequence was reversed again, so that the year letter - starting again at A" - preceded the numbers then the letters of the registration. The available range was then A21 AAA to Y999 YYY, the numbers 1-20 being held back for the government's proposed, and later implemented, DVLA select registration sales scheme. Towards the mid-1990s there was some discussion about introducing a unified scheme for Europe, which would also incorporate the country code of origin of the vehicle, but after much debate such a scheme was not adopted due to lack of countries willing to participate. The changes in 1983 also brought the letter Q into use - although on a very small and limited scale. It was used on vehicles of indeterminate age, such as those assembled from kits, substantial rebuilds, or imported vehicles where the documentation is insufficient to determine the age. There was a marked increase in the use of Q registrations

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