On Wed, 18 Feb 2004 22:37:54 -0000, "Dave Liney" wrote:


You have to remember that these are the idiots who wasted good money
inventing the new number plate system which pandered to the motor
industry.

In what way does it pander to the motor industry? Changing the 'year
identifier' twice a year was brought in with the old single letter
identifier scheme.

Which is exactly what happened with the yearly letter change and then the 6
monthly nonsense which resulted from the august sales glut.

It was originally meant to turnover on the 1st of Jan.


As I understand it the car industry would much rather not
have a change at set points in the year but rather have a continuous series
and so reduce the peaks and troughs in car sales after and before the
changeover time.

Pardon my french, but F*ck the car industry. Other countries manage just
fine without changing a year identifier every 6 months.

IIRC in switzerland the plate is handed out for life.

In 7-8 characters, they could have easily encoded registration information
using Base36 and not have of the 4/7ths redundancy on each and every plate.


Of course if you're not fussy about when your car was born according to the
number plate you can get a bargain.

Quite. Taking a 10-15% loss on something driven new out the showroom door
is the height of stupidity.



greg
--
You do a lot less thundering in the pulpit against the Harlot
after she marches right down the aisle and kicks you in the nuts.