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The Essential Guide To Your Cars Registration

image of car registration plate
Registration Plates

What We'll cover

  • what does your car registration mean?
  • Number Plate Legislation
  • What year is a 70 plate car?
  • what year is a 60 reg car?
  • What Makes a registration plate illegal?

What Does Your Cars Registration Mean?

Although Registration Plates sound rather unimportant and easy to understand, few would be surprised of how much there is to know about them. In the UK new car registration plates come out every autumn and spring. We also use a year based method to be able to tell a cars year from the registration. This was first introduced in 1963 and still continues today.

It uses a letter based system to connect a certain letter to the year of the vehicle. The current number plate scheme was first introduced in September 2001, this was created in the format of starting with two letters followed by two numbers and an additional three letters.

The first two letters tell you where the car was first registered for example LA-LY tells you it was registered in London and MA-MY covers Manchester. The following two numbers after represents the year the car was first registered down a six month period and as previously stated changes on the 1st of march and 1st of September. For example a 60 reg car is 2010/2011 the same as a 10 plate car and a 70 plate car would be 2020/2021 the same as a 20 plate. If you want to know what year your cars plate is check out this awesome post Here.


what Is The Number Plate Legislation?

I think most of us know that having a registration plate on your car is a legal requirement and having an obscured or missing number plate will land you up to three points on your license, failed MOT as well as up to a £1000 fine. The rules for your number plates are as follows:

  • It must be marked to show who supplied the number plate
  • It must be made from reflective material
  • It must not have a background pattern
  • It must show black characters on a white background for the front
  • It must display black characters on a yellow background for the back
  • It must be marked with a British standard number

These are the rules you must follow if your driving in the UK. Although this might seem like a lot, There are some things that you are allowed to do to your number plate. You can have 3D raised characters, you can have a custom number plate as long as it goes with the regulations and is bought from a reputable source, you can have certain flags and symbols: See Here, although, it was just announced that the GB Number plate sticker is no longer valid abroad. Also, you can also display a green flash as long as you have a zero-emission vehicle.


Image Of Cars In the UK Going Across A Bridge

Conclusion

So, as simple as it may seem there is definitely a lot more to know about registration plates than at first glance. It is extremely important you know all the regulations and what registration plates actually mean, else you could be cruising for that fine as previously mentioned. Also, If you are in need of any Car Parts don't hesitate to visit our site here, where we offer Free 24 Hr Delivery on all purchases before 5pm.

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