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Coping with vehicle growth By 1932 most of the two-letter codes had been allocated and the registration system had to be further developed. The decision was made to add a third letter to the authority's code letters followed by up to three numbers, i.e. ABC 123 format where BC would represent the authority code. Staffordshire was the first authority to move onto three letters, ARF being commenced in July 1932. It is interesting to note that Staffordshire had the codes RE and RF (plus E which obviously could not be converted into a three-letter code). ARE was not commenced til July 1934 as at that time RE combinations were used for four-wheeled vehicles and RF was used for motorcycles and more motorcycles were registered than other vehicles! Thus RF was finished before RE. Middlesex, Surrey and Kent soon followed Staffordshire by adopting three letters later in 1932. Inevitably when three-letter registrations were introduced, certain combinations were banned as they spelt potentially offensive words, such as GOD, JEW & SEX. Private car production ceased during the Second World War and less new registrations were needed. Car ownership, however, grew rapidly after the war and the new registration system again had to adapt to accommodate this growth. A logical decision was made to reverse the system, putting the numbers before the letters. Staffordshire was the first authority that needed to issue reversed combinations. The first reversed combination was 1000 E issued in April 1953 - it should be noted that most authorities withheld many low numbered reversed one and two-letter combinations to avoid possible confusion with trade plates. Middlesex followed hard on the heels of Staffordshire by issuing 1000 H in June 1953. Many authorities issued their one or two letter codes first as reversed combinations, whereas others started with three-letter reversed combinations. Some started both series at once, generally to avoid the problem of having to fit four-digit numbers onto small rear motorcycle plates. Ever rapidly increasing vehicle growth meant that, although reversing
had effectively doubled the number of combinations available the
system was again soon "creaking" and further change
was necessary. By the outbreak of the Second World War all available
two-letter codes had been allocated except those containing I
or Z reserved for Ireland and BF, OO & WC. These latter codes
had been withhelf for reasons of propriety in the case of BF &
WC and in the case of OO because of potential confusion with the
figure zero. BF was now allocated to Staffordshire which commenced
CBF in July 1960 and OO & WC to Essex who commenced OO in
September 1961. The "censors" restricted which combinations
of these letters could be issued. Neither BF or WC could be issued
as two letter combinations. Similarly ABF, BBF, UBF, AWC &
UWC were banned, though following a DVLA review of withheld marks,
UBF has recently been issued with "P" prefix. Interestingly,
no objections were raised to LOO and POO being issued! |
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