Within the UK itself there are currently two numbering and registration systems: one for Great Britain, which is administered by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), and one for Northern Ireland, administered by the Driver & Vehicle Agency (DVA): both have equal status.

Unique Number Plates

Y B-ZAR?

Because his license plate is APRIST — short for apiarist, a fancy word for beekeeper.

“Lots of people don’t get it, because it’s not a very common word,” said Clark, who keeps honeybees in the backyard of his Old Louisville home. “Every once in a while, somebody sees is and asks me about beekeeping and honey. But the whole point of a vanity plate is to create a word which is just like the real words but is itself a puzzle, so when you’re driving down the road, it’s ‘Oh, yeah, I got it!’”

Even in the early days, people recognised the significance and enjoyment brought by owning a prestigious or personalised number plate and often kept them within the family for many years. Their significance is often highly personalised to their owners. Some like to have a registration that originated in their local area, some are attracted to owning their own initials and others enjoy the fun of a word based registration mark.

Since the dvla introduced the bsau145d legislation it has been increasingly difficult for motorists to obtain number plates with anything other than legal spacing.

There is however another line of argument for the defence of the serial mis spacer. They say that a number plate that has been altered to make a word or a name is much more memorable in the event of an incident.
They also argue that the dvla blatantly auction registration numbers that would be virtually worthless without mis spacing.

Diplomatic Plates ‘D’ what are they?

Diplomatic plates

Since 1979 cars operated by foreign embassies, high commissions, consular staff, and various international organisations have been given plates with a distinguishing format of three numbers, one letter, three numbers. The letter is D for diplomats or X for accredited non-diplomatic staff. The first group of three numbers identifies the country or organisation to whom the plate has been issued, the second group of three numbers is a serial number, starting at 101 for diplomats (although some embassies were erroneously issued 100), 400 for non-diplomatic staff of international organisations, and 700 for consular staff. Thus, for example, 101 D 101 identifies the first plate allocated to the Afghanistan embassy, 900 X 400 is the first plate allocated to the Commonwealth Secretariat.