Greg Hennessy wrote:
On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 10:42:35 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:
Taking up nearly 60% of each and every plate issued is bad design
IMHO.

You're implying that it needs only 3 characters to identify the
vehicle.

Where did I imply that. A vehicle is *uniquely* identified from the
26^3 combination of the 3 character remainder, not the 4 characters
wasted on a static year / registration office. Thats only ~17.5k odd
combinations which one must assume a busy registration office would
easily consume in a matter of days/weeks. Especially with bulk
registrations from fleet buyers.

Common sense would dictate that a combination of

2 digit Year
[A-Z0-9] registration location
4 Character Base36 unique ID,

would generate nearly 1.7 million unique registrations in comparison

But that's still 7 characters, and it doesn't cope with the 40 DVLA
offices identified in the current system, which the DVLA presumably
finds convenient. So why is it better?

Personally I consider the issue of yearly plates to be silly.

Giving each license holder his own plate for life would have solved
the problem once and for all.

What is this "problem" that you are so concerned about?

Unnecessarily wasting taxpayers money.

The number of vehicles and licensed drivers on the roads is relatively
fixed when compared to the open ended number to keep track in the
current system.

I assume you mean owners rather than drivers, otherwise your scheme
doesn't work for commercial vehicles at all. But I'm still not clear
how you would save money. When a car was first assigned to an owner, it
would need to be registered against that owner's personal number
(assuming a tidy situation where he had just got rid of his previous car
and could therefore reuse the number). It would then have to be
re-registered when sold to another owner. Where is the saving?
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

"Greg Hennessy" wrote in message
...
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.

You seem to have missed the point that the twice yearly changeover has
nothing to do with the new system but was already in place before it was
introduced. There was no change in the time of identifier change with the
introduction of the new system.

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.

If you actually read what I had posted you would have realised that I said
that the car industry does not want the changeover at 12 months or 6 months,
they would rather have a continuous series. Which apparently you are
suggesting but feel the need to disagree with me.

Dave.

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 22:22:08 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:


Common sense would dictate that a combination of

2 digit Year
[A-Z0-9] registration location
4 Character Base36 unique ID,

would generate nearly 1.7 million unique registrations in comparison

But that's still 7 characters, and it doesn't cope with the 40 DVLA
offices identified in the current system, which the DVLA presumably
finds convenient. So why is it better?

that's 36 unique registration locations versus 40. What's so special about
maintaining 40 DVLA offices ?

What is this "problem" that you are so concerned about?

Unnecessarily wasting taxpayers money.

The number of vehicles and licensed drivers on the roads is relatively
fixed when compared to the open ended number to keep track in the
current system.

I assume you mean owners rather than drivers, otherwise your scheme
doesn't work for commercial vehicles at all.

No I mean drivers. A commercial vehicle driver turns up and attaches his
plate to the vehicle he's driving that day.


But I'm still not clear
how you would save money. When a car was first assigned to an owner, it
would need to be registered against that owner's personal number

Well apart from depriving garages of the 500 quid plate fees they charge
for putting a new car on the road. How hard is it for a new owner to turn
up with a set of plates and id for the garage to key into the relevant
database.

(assuming a tidy situation where he had just got rid of his previous car
and could therefore reuse the number).

That's the whole point, under the swiss system, one can move the plate
between every vehicle one owns. The function of the plate is to identify
the driver, and the driver can only drive one car at a time.


It would then have to be
re-registered when sold to another owner. Where is the saving?

Why would it have to be 're-registered'. The new owner turns up with his
plates and drives away.



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.

On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 01:20:32 -0000, "Dave Liney" wrote:


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

You seem to have missed the point that the twice yearly changeover has
nothing to do with the new system but was already in place before it was
introduced.

Which was an attempt to smooth over august sales peak caused by the suffix
changed being moved there from January.

Are you suggesting that said movement of the yearly identifying mark and
the resulting distortion on sales had nothing to do with the motor industry
?


There was no change in the time of identifier change with the
introduction of the new system.

Proof if any was needed of the current dogs breakfast. If one is going to
introduce a completely new system and encode a yearly identifying mark,
changing it every 6 months is just silly.

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

If you actually read what I had posted you would have realised that I said
that the car industry does not want the changeover at 12 months or 6 months,

That would be the car industry who persuaded the govt to move the suffix
change from Jan to Aug in the Mid 60s, and then whinged even more to get a
twice yearly change due to the distorting effects that change had on the
market.

Unless you are suggesting the govts of the day had some other reasons for
taking such arbitrary action ?

they would rather have a continuous series.

The registration system doesn't exist for the benefit of the car industry.




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.

Greg Hennessy wrote in message . ..
Personally I consider the issue of yearly plates to be silly.

Personally I quite like it. Its a quick rough indication of a cars
age when you're buying 2nd hand. Ok the plates could be faked but thats a
whole other issue.


Giving each license holder his own plate for life would have solved the
problem once and for all.

No thanks. I don't want a plate that will identify me personally. I carry
enough id as it is and don't need yet more big brother survellance on top
of it.

B2003

On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:39:34 +0000, Greg Hennessy
wrote in :

That's the whole point, under the swiss system, one can move the plate
between every vehicle one owns. The function of the plate is to identify
the driver, and the driver can only drive one car at a time.

Not in my experience; I was told that a plate may only be swapped
between two different vehicles of the same insurance class. The plate
doesn't identify the driver, it more identifies the insurance -- if you
lay your bike up for the winter, you return the plate to the insurer for
safe-keeping (and a lower insurance premium) during the time it's
off-road. When I left Switzerland I had t return the plate to Zurich
Insurance, not the Aargau equivalent of DVLA.

--
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Room 40-1-B12, CERN
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

Dave Liney wrote:

If you actually read what I had posted you would have realised that I said
that the car industry does not want the changeover at 12 months or 6 months,
they would rather have a continuous series.

I don't believe you. Surely the motor industry loves the fact that so
many people buy a new car just because the year identifier on the number
plates has changed?

Here in Australia we do have a continuous series and there are no year
identifiers, and the average age of the cars looks lot higher (although
for obvious reasons it's hard to be sure). However, there are still
sales peaks caused by the introduction of new models (and the
discounting to get rid of the old ones) and in June (at the end of the
financial year).

"Greg Hennessy" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 01:20:32 -0000, "Dave Liney" wrote:

You seem to have missed the point that the twice yearly changeover has
nothing to do with the new system but was already in place before it was
introduced.

Which was an attempt to smooth over august sales peak caused by the suffix
changed being moved there from January.
Are you suggesting that said movement of the yearly identifying mark and
the resulting distortion on sales had nothing to do with the motor
industry?

The move of the suffix to August did not cause the sales peak. There had
been one when the changeover was in January and the changeover month was
moved to a time when the demand for new cars could more easily be met. The
distortion of sales was caused by the government's introduction of the
yearly indentifier; nothing to do with the motor industry.

There was no change in the time of identifier change with the
introduction of the new system.

Proof if any was needed of the current dogs breakfast. If one is going to
introduce a completely new system and encode a yearly identifying mark,
changing it every 6 months is just silly.

What is encoded is a six monthly id mark. Changing that every six months
makes sense to me.

If you actually read what I had posted you would have realised that I
said
that the car industry does not want the changeover at 12 months or 6
months,

That would be the car industry who persuaded the govt to move the suffix
change from Jan to Aug in the Mid 60s, and then whinged even more to get a
twice yearly change due to the distorting effects that change had on the
market.

They asked the government to move the changeover month, which happened in
1967. However this was in response to the government bring in the year
identifier in in 1963, which was not of the motor industry's doing. They
were trying to make the best of a bad situation.

Do you really think that people didn't want to show they had a new car by
getting one right after the changeover in January, but when it changed in
August they suddenly did?

they would rather have a continuous series.

The registration system doesn't exist for the benefit of the car industry.

What do you want? Half the time you are saying there should be a continuous
series and then you say it would be terrible to do it because the motor
industry would prefer it.

Dave

"Aidan Stanger" wrote in message
...
Dave Liney wrote:

If you actually read what I had posted you would have realised that I
said
that the car industry does not want the changeover at 12 months or 6
months,
they would rather have a continuous series.

I don't believe you. Surely the motor industry loves the fact that so
many people buy a new car just because the year identifier on the number
plates has changed?

Most industries would prefer, for the same number of sales annually, to have
them level across the year rather than have a significant dip and peak once
or twice a year.

I don't think the changeover makes people buy cars. It makes them buy a new
car, if they are going to buy one at all, just after the changeover rather
than in the month before but that is a different thing altogether.

Dave.

On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 19:05:36 -0000, "Dave Liney" wrote:


The move of the suffix to August did not cause the sales peak.

Of course it did.

There had
been one when the changeover was in January and the changeover month was
moved to a time when the demand for new cars could more easily be met.

That contradicts what I've heard elsewhere. It was moved to August
precisely to stimulate demand. Few people were in the humour to spend money
on new cars just after Xmas.

The
distortion of sales was caused by the government's introduction of the
yearly indentifier; nothing to do with the motor industry.

There was never a sales peak in January, thats nonsense.



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.