Hoot Guide to decoding registration marks

Registration marks were introduced in the UK in 1904, primarily to aid police in tracing vehicles that are observed at crashes or crime scenes. However, number plates are useful for more than just catching criminals - as we'll see in this latest guide from the cheap car insurance team at Hoot.

Though the format has gone through many changes over the years, the sequence of letters and numbers assigned to each registration has always been significant rather than random. You might be surprised at how much of a car's history is recorded on its numberplate.

In almost every case, you can work out a car's registration year just by identifying the relevant character on its numberplate. Beyond that, many plates yield information about the place of registration, right down to the DVLA office where the paperwork was filed.

Learning how to decode these details will make you much better informed both as a citizen and a motorist - and of course it'll stop you getting hoodwinked when buying a secondhand car. In particular, knowing a car's age just by looking at its numberplate is a useful and reassuring skill when it comes down to filling out registration documents or applying for cheap car insurance on a new vehicle.

Numberplate regulations
Before we get into decoding the actual characters on a car numberplate, it's important to be able to spot a legal plate (i.e. one which conforms to the strict set of typeface, spacing, colour and size regulations that apply in the UK) from an illegal one.

If you're buying a secondhand car, it's probably best to avoid non-standard plates, even if you think they were fitted unwittingly. A legal plate is one of a number of visible guarantees that the car you're viewing is a genuine sale, and you'd be taking a big risk handing over any money without one.

Briefly: legally produced plates always use the same, ultra-clear typeface for easy reading (so italics or any other font style is out); always conform to the standard character block layout (more on this later); and are always white in front and yellow at the rear, with black lettering.

The vast majority of cars display correct plates (it is a legal requirement, after all), so if you're in doubt about the one on offer, compare plates with another vehicle. Or check for the British Standard mark - BS AU 145d - which should be printed on all recently produced plates.

For further info, and illustrations of the correct typeface and layout, visit http://www.directgov.uk/en/Motoring.

Decoding the year of registration - 1983-2001
The most recent revision to the registration mark format occurred in September 2001, and the one previous to that in August 1983. Sales of secondhand cars that were registered before '83 are nowadays limited to enthusiasts and collectors, so it seems fair to limit ourselves (as practical used car buyers) to these two types of plate.

The first type, known as the 'prefix series' due to the placement of its year letter, was actually just the reversal of the format before it, and is not really much different to the original 1904 plates.

Every number in the prefix series falls in the range 'A1AAA' to 'Y999YYY'. The significant character as far as the date of registration is concerned is the very first one - the prefix. Thus an 'A' registration car dates from August 1983 to July 1984, and a 'B' registration from August 1984 to July 1985.

Note that the letters I, Q and Z were not used for reasons of clarity. Accordingly year 'H' (August 1990 - July 1991), is followed directly by 'J' (August 1991 - July 1992) and so on.

Also, the prefix series was adapted in 1999 to a bi-annual rather than annual letter change. This means that 'S' and all subsequent registrations ran for only six months (August 1998 - February 1999 in this case).

Registration years after 2001
By September 2001, the prefix series had reached 'Y' and run out of letters. Accordingly, a new system was devised - and it represented a pretty radical (and substantially less complicated) departure from the old format.

This current system consists of seven characters, arranged into three blocks: two letters, two numbers and then three letters. With this format it's the numbers that identify the registration year, rather than a prefix letter.

For a car from the first half of the registration year, the numbers are simply the last two digits of that year - i.e. for March to August 2005, they would be '05'.

Then to indicate the second half of the year, add 50 to the number. Thus, September 2005 to February 2006 is represented as '55', and September 2025 (if we're still driving cars by then) will be '75'.

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