What's Going On With Personalised Registration LEW 1S?

I've been reading with interest the reports of Lewis Hamilton and the LEW 1S number plate he's supposed to have bought.

Now, allegedly, Hamilton denies buying the plate, thoughtfully adding a bit of a snub towards number plates - something along the lines of: "why would anyone want to actually buy a number plate?".

However there must have been some truth in the story because both The Telegraph and ITV posted news articles stating that Hamilton had bought the personalised number plate, for the grand sum of £200,000.

Fellow number plate dealers have released a good number of press articles relating to the number plate story. One in particular proposes that the purchase was in fact a ruse masterminded by the private owner of the registration, property tycoon Bob Lewis, designed to generate hype and interest in the number plate by riding on the back of Lewis's fame.

Whatever the truth is - it's actually a fantastic number plate for Lewis! But, as with most things in life, there's always room for improvement.

National Numbers are now taking pre-orders for previously unreleased F registrations. This is the last big prefix release so Lewis had better move fast (although I'm sure that won't be a problem!).

Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton, 23, born January 7, 1985 in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, whose latest win was the 2008 Monaco Grand Prix, could pre-order the fast and furious F registration F1 LEW, or F1 LDH, both a nice way to combine the significance of Lewis's career and his name / intitals in one registration!

Or how about a search which will hunt through ALL the 30 million registrations we have on our database? LEW 7S is a quality number plate in these results, or he could just browse all Lewis number plates.

There are so many ways to find what you're looking for. Don't be afraid to search for absolutely anything! The search really is that powerful and easy-to-use! Try our Number Plates Search yourself now!

Number Plate Aficionados Prone to Road Rage

Research by social psychologist William Szlemko at Colorado University has proven that drivers who sport car accessories such as personalised number plates, furry dice, and bumper stickers are more likely to suffer symptoms of road rage.

Amusingly, the greater the number of "territorial markers" a driver possesses in connection with their vehicle, the more likely it is that they will respond in an inappropriate manner to others' on the road.

Szlemko says: "Just the presence of territory markers predicts the tendency to be an aggressive driver."

Szlemko's co-author, Paul Bell, agrees: "Territoriality is hard-wired into our ancestors from tens of thousands of years ago. Animals are territorial because it had survival value. If you could keep others away from your hunting groups, you had more game to spear ... it becomes part of the biology."

If you're a territorial kind of person, number plates are certainly one of the best ways to personalise your car. Road rage? Your choice!

Most Expensive Number Plate? – Here's The “1” To Watch!

Interested to learn what the world's most expensive number plate is? Here's the "1" to watch – quite literally!

Because the diminutive digit number 1 is set to become the World's most expensive number plate – with an estimated value of 25 million Dirhams (more than 3.5 million pounds) – when it sells at auction in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on February 16.

A similarly small registration number, the number 5, currently holds the record as the World's most expensive number plate, selling for a staggering 25.2 million Dirhams (again, more than 3.5 million pounds) .

Abdullah Mattar, Managing Director of Emirates Auction says, "Number 5 was sold for 25.2 million, which set the Guinness world record as the most expensive number plate. So we expect more for number plate 1". According to Mr. Mattar, the company expects fierce bidding from at least five people for number plate 1.

National Numbers sell some very special registrations, and with prices starting at just £188, they afford a cheap and cheerful way to personalise your vehicle. If you're stuck for ideas, we have plenty of suggestions. How about your name, initials, or browse through a list of A-Z Single Letters?

Or, if you yearn for something really special and very unique, and you have half as much money to spend as our Arab chums, you couldn't go far wrong with a classic dateless plate or irish plate featuring the number 1. Here are some singular suggestions to stir up your imagination:

CTK 1	1 GOA
1 GE	PAY 1T
XE 1	1 NKH
NKZ 1	HX 1

Number Plates, Street View, and Privacy Issues

In the news this morning, fresh fears over privacy have been raised, but by two very separate incidents.

The first is a clamp down on car tax dodgers through Automatic Number Plate Recognition usage, in Wiltshire.

The second concerns ubiquitous search engine Google, which is changing its Street View privacy policy to ensure that imagery obscures faces and car number plates.

What is Street View? It’s Google’s new and fancy virtual street mapping tool that lets you virtually stroll the streets of the US as realistically as if you were there in the flesh.

It was only this very weekend that I was putting forward some concerns over Street View to NumberPlateGuy – as he was deftly demonstrating this new wonder of Internet technology – "what about people’s faces, and what about number plates!"

But Google didn’t reconsider their position on displaying faces and number plates off their own steam – the changes to Street View’s policy came about as a public reaction to concerns over privacy.

Anyhow, the technology has yet to be made available to the UK so we needn’t worry about Googler’s being able to view inside our houses, or peek at our number plates, just yet.

The person on the street might be concerned about having their number plate beamed out to millions of Google users, but if you owned private registration plates like L3 00K and P3 EKK, maybe you’d want to get some attention!

Go EA57, DVLA Number Plate Censors!

DVLA are causing a scandal again with their latest manoeuvre – censoring of the new 57 plates.

I hear cries of "what’s in a number?" - when it comes to value and variety; surely 57’s got the flavour? OK, well maybe people don’t want to report their fondness for national gastronomic favourite, Heinz, in their personalised number plate. But just what is so strong about 57, DVLA?

Well, the strength of the combo lies in that it can be used to spell ST and SY. And how strong these words are. Take the popular game, Scrabble, where, due to their ability to make numerous words, S and T score but 1, and Y earns players’ 4 points; they're strong, all right.

Admittedly, a couple of the plates that have been pulled by the Government agency do have a certain stigma attached: BA57 ARD (bastard) and TE57 CLE (testicle) are mildly offensive to anybody; EC57 ASY (ecstasy), MY57 ASH (my stash) and H057 AGE (hostage) are what could be considered touchy.

But what happened to cutting loose and allowing just a little bit of numeric horseplay?

Also ripped from the reg list was EA57 GAL (easy gal), which could have been taken with some light humour. Given the DVLA’s track record for smut, I’m sure with this plate – they ought to have gone easy, themselves.

Looking for some terribly naughty 57 number plates?
LO57 BET (lost bet)
EX57 ASY (ecstasy)
FA57 LAY (fast lay)
FA57 LUV (fast love)
HA57 NOB (you decide)

A Victory For Common Sense: The Vehicle Registration Marks Act 2007

This new private members’ Act was passed to become law on Thursday 19th July 2007. It seeks to simplify the process of transferring registrations between buyers and sellers, and create a safer process that reduces the potential for fraud.

Richard Ottoway, the Conservative MP for Croydon South, introduced the Act – which has received support from both influential motoring bodies and the UK Government, with the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) and the Cherished Numbers Dealer Association (CNDA - part of the Retail Motor Industry Federation) rallying to push the bill through to law.

The Police are also backing the new regime for its potential to curtail crime against registration plate buyers: the old system made it possible for a seller to take a buyer’s money without providing the plate or the plate’s documentation.

But now, the registered keeper of a vehicle can apply to retain the registration mark separately from the vehicle, and the owner is warranted the right to use the mark on another vehicle for up to 12 months.

A further extension may be possible until such time as the mark is assigned to a vehicle.

Robert Wicken, chairman at the CNDA said:

"Now the Act has passed into law, consumers and cherished number dealers will get a process that provides more choice and flexibility."

This is really exciting news for all those involved in buying and selling car number plates. Instead of a registration mark having to go on to a retention certificate in the name of the seller (with the buyer’s name as nominee only and, thus, having no legal rights), the certificate can now go straight into the buyer’s name at the time of the retention application.

This is much safer and fairer system all round, with no chance of the seller reneging on the deal and applying for a duplicate certificate. It puts the buyer much more in control, with all reminders from DVLA coming straight to the buyer.

Absolutely brilliant – plus a victory for common sense!

More information:
Retail Motor Industry Federation
Read the Act:
Vehicle Registration Marks Act 2007

Looking for cherished numbers?
Bill Number Plates
Law Number Plates
Act Number Plates

Personalised Number Plates: A Fine Formula

The Seattle Times’ Top 20 most read news stories has placed a story about a number plate as the fifth most read online article for 2005.

Why all the fuss about a personalised number plate? Well, the registration mirrored the formula used by chemists for identifying common narcotics.

The plate, C9H13N – a label for chemicals such as meths – was first seen on a black Audi, cruising around the streets of Seattle. Because of the chances of the general public knowing that the plate contains a reference to drugs, and because the formula also applies to compounds used in legal medicines such as amphetamine, the owner had so far managed to avoid legal action and revocation of the plate – successfully bypassing the US Department of Licensing state regulations.

These stringent guidelines govern the granting of vanity applications, clearly stating that the application will be rejected if it relates to alcohol or illegal activities or substances.

I wonder if our very own DVLA would have spotted this? To be fair, it’s an obscure case.

"It’s pretty easy for something like this to slip through"

said a spokesman for the department.

"With a series of letters and numbers, if you’re not a chemist it doesn’t ring a bell."

Either way, it shows just how personalised, and how popular, number plates have become.

It’s fun to speculate on the type of owner of this plate: a fast, downtown drug dealer with a wad of cash, or a modest chemist paying homage to a popular class of compounds?

Either way, if he were to emigrate here to the UK, he could be sure of finding his perfect formula for a UK number plate using our Clever Search. Here are some suggestions for personalised number plates of a chemical variety:

D20 UGS
K155 LSD
T2 RYP
H1 YGH
M13 THS

SN07 Good: DVLA Get Picky Over Plates

Scottish number plate prefix SN has been hastily replaced with TN in Edinburgh because DVLA officials have deemed the prefix too "offensive".

The DVLA has already released SN05 and SN06, so why the change of heart with 07?

Well, the plates clearly look far too much like snot.

There has been a general outcry of "bureaucracy gone mad" amongst dealers who are used to, and indeed, make a living from, seeking out new and interesting name and number combinations; and it has to be said that this sort of censorship in itself can cause more offence than it intends to contain. Surely nobody would sniff at such innocuous word?

Not according the DVLA:

"It is our policy that any registration mark that can be construed as being offensive to people will be suppressed. In this case, the SN07 marks would have been too similar to the word 'snot' and, as that could possibly offend some buyers, they were replaced with new TN07 registrations."

And how disappointing it must be for Edinburgh residents who can no longer sport patriotic plates on their 07 vehicles, as the rest of Scotland do.

Quoting an article in the Edinburgh News, Tim Shalcross, spokesman for the British Institute of Advanced Motorists, said:

"I think a lot of people would have been very keen to have those plates. I don't think its particularly blatant word either. After all, the registration is SN07 - which is very different to SNOT. The DVLA obviously have too much time on their hands."

Here are some plates you can’t turn your nose up at:

SCOT number plates
DVLA number plates
....................
542 NOT
BOG 3Y
S55 NOT
PA55 NOT

Interview with Derek Clements - Seller of Cherished Reg Plates CEO 1 and CEO 2

Well, the bidding on the number plates CEO 1 and CEO 2 has finally closed. CEO 1 sold for a whopping £154,100.01. The bidding on CEO 2 ended on £10,000 (its reserve was not met).

For those who are new to the story, we’ve been closely watching the bidding on Derek Clements’ cherished registrations CEO 1 and CEO 2.

National Numbers’ Chairman, Eric Craggs, got the chance to catch up with Derek whilst taking a short break in Cumbria (which, co-incidentally, also happens to be the home of CEO 1 and CEO 2: the numbers were first registered there).

In fact, Derek and Eric get on famously, not in the least down to their shared interest in classic cars and cherished numbers.

Derek has been interested in classic cars and classic car restoration since 16 years of age. He has spent most of his adult life reviving and refurbishing old and jaded classic cars to their former glory.

Leaving school in 1961 at 16 years old, he saw his first E–type Jaguar Series I and said, "one day I’ll own one of those!"

By 1966, at the tender age of 21 years, Derek had bought his first E–type Jaguar for £750. Although he couldn’t afford car insurance, he didn’t let this curb his enthusiasm to drive, and so the car was insured in his father’s name.

Despite insurance woes, this was a fantastic era to be 21 years old. Take the widespread national pride over England’s World Cup glory, and mix it with the image and excitement generated by sensuously–styled classic car that most 21 year olds could only dream of, and you surely have a perfect James Bond–esque dream lifestyle!

Sadly, the dream had to end, and Derek sold the car a few years later for £500: a small loss for such prestige!

Mr. Clements’ connection with Jaguar actually runs far deeper than his first car: his aunt is Mrs Emily Baily whose husband Claude Baily was a chief engine designer for Jaguar in the fifties. Baily was instrumental in the design of the four-cam racing engine that powered the Jaguar XJ13 and he and another designer were jointly responsible for the XK and the V12 engine.

But what happened to Derek’s first love, his E–type? Well, the car was exported to Australia, but happily, he has since received letters from its owner, who is taking good care of her, and making the most of her elegance by exhibiting her in competitions.

Despite a brief diversion into restoring the classic MGB, Derek was soon lured back to the E–type and other Jaguar cars, and quickly built a profitable and rewarding career based on his favourite hobby.

One of Derek’s best deals was buying a Roadster for £3,000, which he restored, and sold for £30,000.

More recently, Derek bought five cars of elite prestige, including a Jaguar XK120, from a local dealer. One of the cars, an Aston Martin DB6, had the cherished number CEO 1 on it. He sold the car and transferred the plate to one of his E–type Jaguars. As part of the same deal came a Ferrari Daytona on which CEO 2 was registered. The dealer had already sold the car but Mr. Clements bought the plate on a retention certificate.

The online auction has ended for CEO 1 and CEO 2, and so too has this particular chapter in Derek Clements’ life. But I doubt that his love of the classic Jaguar E–type or of cherished registrations will ever die.

If you have an interest in the cars mentioned here, check out the E–type Club or the MGB Enthusiasts Group, or our Number Plate Story GTY 7, a tale about the cherished number GTY 7 that was proudly displayed on Phillip Walton’s Jaguar MK 2 at the Monte Carlo Rally.

If your love lies with cherished numbers, how about these classic car themed suggestions?

Sounds like Bond, James Bond: C8 OND or B1 OND
Sounds like MG: 4 MG or K155 MGB
E–Type: ETY 9E or E10 JAG

Number Plate Criminals Screwed by New Technology

A partnership recently formed in Oxford has the intention of curbing surging numbers of car number plate thefts through the use of new anti–theft screws.

The partnership, formed a year ago by Oxford council and the Oxford Safer Communities Partnership, was launched following an increase in number plate theft incidents. This new scheme, involving the free of charge screws, will run over the coming summer months.

What makes the screws different to regular number plate screws, is that they are impossible to remove without breaking the number plate. Successful pilot schemes previously run in the county gave anecdotal reports of a significant reduction in thefts.

This is great news for those motorists who have been wrongly involved in crime, fined, given points on their licence, or worse – convicted, because their number plate was stolen.

Crime Reduction Officer Nick Gilbert said: "The stolen plates are often used to disguise the identity of vehicles used to commit crimes such as the theft of fuel, avoiding London congestion charges or fooling speed cameras."

According to BBC News, more than 40,000 sets of number plates were stolen in 2006, a rise of almost 25%.

With car ringing and other identity crimes becoming more prevalent daily, let’s hope this free technology can be rolled out to the rest of the country some time very soon.

For now, you can buy anti-theft screws from Speeding.co.uk for £5.99 per set.

If you’d like to secure a private number plate of your own, how about a screwed plate, a safe plate or maybe a sorted plate? Or try your own combination with our Clever Search.

The Corporate Race For Cherished Number Plates CEO 1 and CEO 2

There has been a lot of talk in the press and on television over the past few days about the race to buy number plates CEO 1 and CEO 2 at auction.

It’s easy to see why people have been clamouring to buy the coveted plates, which are for sale on eBay.

These desirable numbers are perfect for business leaders across the length of the country: Chief Executive Officers, Communication Electronics Officers and Chief Electoral Officers will be falling over themselves for developments on the sales; not to mention the countless number plate enthusiasts who would no doubt envy the owner of such distinguished marks.

As it stands, the bidding on CEO 1 is currently at £126,100 with 69 bids; CEO 2 considerably less at £7,900 and just 16 bids (and quite rightly so – which fat cat wants to be number 2?).

But how far would a bidder go to secure CEO 1? After all, money might be no object for the jet set that this simple abbreviation describes.

With less than a week to go until the close of the auctions, it really is a demonstration of a plate’s value being determined by "what’s it worth to the buyer?" – and in this case, the buyers are some of the richest people in the country!

What remains to be seen is whether or not the final sale price of the plate will reach last years proportions, when the registration M1 sold for a staggering £331,000.

The seller of the plates is Derek Clements, 61, a retired bank manager from Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, who is removing them from the two classic E-Type Jaguars amongst his collection of classic cars. In previous lives, the plates have adorned car brands as glamorous as Ferrari and Aston Martin.

The number plates were, in fact, first registered in 1956 and are what is known in the trade as being "dateless" – because they carry no year identifier and it would be necessary to consult a reference book to find out when they were originally issued. This only serves to increase the value and exclusivity of the plates, as they can be used on a vehicle of any age. The "C" part of the number has absolutely no relation to the fact that the plates were first registered in Cumbria. The "EO" parts of the number plate however relate to the town of registration, Barrow-in-Furness.

Eric Craggs, Director of National Numbers expects the bidding to go as high as £150,000. Would he be interested in buying CEO 1 for himself? Not at all, he believes the number plate would be far better off in the possession of a chief to a large multinational company.

And happily, Mr. Clements intends to use the money to "enjoy his retirement".

I think the stories of CEO 1 and CEO 2 are particularly interesting and shall be watching the bidding on eBay closely over the coming week, so watch this space for more news!

To enter a bid on CEO 1, you can view the plate on eBay, or for an alternative CEO plate, try National Number's Clever Search. We could offer you the slightly risqué K155 CEO at £1299, or the more demure M155 CEO at £999.

Either way, you’re likely to find your perfect reg, for a far more reasonable price!

Big Brother Tactics Using Number Plates

Locals in Somerset are stunned today following the upgrade of their CCTV cameras to a constantly monitored system which stores details of cars that pass through, and forwards the details to government agencies.

Weston Town Hall's investment in cutting edge equipment has promised to track residents' every move using sophisticated Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology, along with additional monitors at their CCTV headquarters, and a 42-inch plasma screen.

ANPR is a police initiative that is based on the premise that criminals need a car in order to conduct criminal activity. Every number plate that passes through an ANPR camera is scanned, logged, and referenced to a national database of registration plates and vehicles. The car registration is fed to various sources, including the Police National Computer, Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and insurance databases.

Previous schemes throughout the country have seen arrest figures soar - Thames Valley Police said arrests rose nine times when they installed the system.

But what about law abiding citizens who fear for their privacy through the use of such systems? What is the knock on effect of such a tightly controlled system?

In order to avoid surveillance or penalty charges, there has been an upsurge in car ringing and cloning, which we covered in an earlier news article, particularly in London.

The criminal need not worry if he is logged using someone else's registration, and again the good guy loses.

Reports from a Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) trial showed that ANPR had an error rate of up to 40%, opening the door to the incorrect pointing of fingers towards innocent drivers.

But maybe this is a little serious – we do after all live in a democracy where we have the right to choose and where if we stick to the rules we have nothing to fear right?

So most of us have nothing to fear. But the very thought of misidentification using the system is fit to induce fear of 1984-esque proportions here in the UK, where every move is watched and we see the country nose-dive into an automated justice system.

Oh, you can also read NumberPlateGuy's view on this, in an earlier post.

DVLA Workers Sacked Over Porn Scandal

I just wrote a news article for the National Numbers web site. I will paste it in below for you to read.
----------------------------------------

The government body and registrations provider DVLA has finally closed the book on their recent porn scandal, following the conclusion of their enquiry into the circulation of "inappropriate" emails during 2005 and 2006.

A total of 18 members of DVLA's 6000 plus staff have been sacked, and a further 147 officially reprimanded. The guilty members of staff were found to have downloaded or sent pornographic material.

This scandal is not the only one to have hit the DVLA in the past few years. The tale began in July 2005 when a female worker was dismissed after sending a video clip of her having sex with her boyfriend, via her mobile phone.

Then, in October 2006, 65 DVLA workers found themselves facing disciplinary action following a thorough scrutiny of company servers for inappropriate material.

About the content discovered on company computers in the enquiry, a DVLA worker told the South Wales Evening Post:

"It is everywhere. It is hardcore stuff and very offensive. A lot of people have been unhappy to have the emails popping up on their computers".

A spokeswoman for the DVLA said all staff had been reminded about the rules governing the use of work emails.

"The matter is now officially closed"

She added.

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My question is, how can a government body who spends all their time wading through red tape and making rules, go so badly off the respectability scale? The mind boggles as to what they get up to in their work time. Video clips of staff doing the deed, staff being sent naughty material by other members of staff, investigations of bloated and slowed servers; no doubt the direct result of all the bandwidth-heavy porn flying around. It's all quite amusing.

On that note, if you're interested in rude or funny number plates why not continue the humour by using our Clever Search? It's really good - so try not to be offended! :)

Bird Flu Plates

I spotted this article on the register the other day. Some chap trying to make a buck by selling his Bird Flu themed number plate on eBay. Can't blame him for trying!
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/24/bird_flu_plate/