A new set of private number plate registrations are set to launch in the UK.
Every year two sets of number plates are introduced which are used to identify the age of a vehicle.
The first batch of plates are introduced on March 1st and the second set comes in on September 1st.
Drivers are often keen to get their hands on a new plate as they launch as it signifies that you have a new vehicle.
The two sets of number plates are differentiated by the age identifier which is the two numbers after the first two characters on the registration.
The first of the two numbers change in September when the new plates are introduced.
Therefore, cars registered between March 1st until August 31st will be labelled with the ’19’ tag until the new ’69’ plates are introduced on September 1st.
The current number plate numbering systems as introduced in 2001. However, at the time the second best of annual plates are delineated by a ‘5’ instead of a ‘6’.
After 2010, however, the half-year mark number was changed from five to six – for example, November 2009 got 59 and November 2011 got 61.
Before this point licence plates used a single letter that represented the year it was registered in.
This system began in 1983 with the letter A and ended in August 2001 with ‘Y’.
What do the characters and number on a number plate mean?
The first two letters on the number plate are the ‘DVLA memory tag.’
These letters represent the region the vehicle was introduced. The first letter refers to the region while the second represents the local DVLA offices.
For example, the L at the start of a number plate stands for London. However, where it gets confusing is that multiple letters can signify the same DVLA office.
It is not uncommon, however, for cars with similar letter sequences to be from the same manufacturer.
After these letters, there are two numbers on the first half of the plate are the age identifier. After the number identifier is three random letters.