>Due to batch registrations of new cars, it is common for cars with "neighbouring" letter sequences to be of the same or very similar specifications.
Who came up with this system and thought that was a good way to assign these letters?
Just imagine a granny that was nearly run over by a silver Vauxhall Astra and calls the police, but can't remember the last two letters. Then the police looks up the number plates and there are a hundred nearly identical silver Vauxhall Astras, all of which have almost the same plates except for the last two letters.
Literally any other way of assigning these numbers would have been better.
It's a result of endemic innumeracy. Our vehicle index number system was designed by bureaucrats who had so little understanding of mathematics and computer science that it didn't even occur to them to consult an expert. It's the same reason government IT projects tend to end in complete disaster - nobody writing the cheques knows enough about computing to realise that they're incompetent.
>>2851 I'd have thought plain CCTV would be more likely to score a hit, but no matter, you don't know how ANPR works. It records the journeys of everyone indiscriminately and stores that data for up to two years.
Would it not be possible to use IR paint (if such a thing exists) to alter a car's number plates in such a way that it's invisible to the naked eye but says something different if seen through an IR camera?
>>2854 >It records the journeys of everyone indiscriminately and stores that data for up to two years.
I'm going to need a source on that, because that sounds awfully illegal.