 Poster: A snowHead
|
If there's a quick answer...
If you have the little sticker on the plates with the Union Flag and 'UK'* on, do you need a sticker too? Ta.
*as opposed to 'GB'.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
|
No.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
|
|
Nope, but still need to fiddle with headlights beam
|
|
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
| Gored wrote: |
| Nope, but still need to fiddle with headlights beam |
My car does that for me! 
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
|
Bloody Boris. (Not our friendly bartender.)
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
|
@Ski lots, Cheers!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Depends where youre going you need a seperate sticker for Spain UK on number plate is not acceptable.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
@Charliegolf, mine too. No need to turn off speed camera warnings either which are also illegal on the continent.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
|
@James77, The Waze sat nave app has warnings of speed check zones and also warns of "Police" just before the actual camera and from the number of users its pretty popular because it does not warn of Speed Cameras.
Users can also pinpoint details of Police activity and 'vehicle on roadside" when they see a mobile speed camera.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| James77 wrote: |
| Depends where youre going you need a seperate sticker for Spain UK on number plate is not acceptable. |
Same goes for Switzerland
|
|
|
|
|
|
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
|
| boredsurfin wrote: |
@James77, The Waze sat nave app has warnings of speed check zones and also warns of "Police" just before the actual camera and from the number of users its pretty popular because it does not warn of Speed Cameras.
Users can also pinpoint details of Police activity and 'vehicle on roadside" when they see a mobile speed camera. |
CamSam is the answer. Free, easy to use and independent of your choice of navigation.
Yes, it's illegal. Technically. Judging by their behaviour I'd guess probably >60% of motorists driving the Swiss autoroutes use it or similar. Under what situations they'd be prosecuted for it I can't imagine, but the penalties are quite a bit lower than speeding fines anyway, so even if you were it's probably saved you in the long run.
Waze tries to get round the law by just giving Police warnings, but even if you get them they won't tell you if it's an actual camera or just a stopped car, and I always found the interface, mixing together with your actual navigation, quite distracting to use compared with Camsam and google maps. I use the former on my phone and the latter on my cars' head units.
|
|
|
|
|
|
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
|
The international white oval large UK sticker placed on the rear of the car is valid everywhere in Europe*. The font must be Roman capitals black on a white background.
Small ovals are not valid and nor are white-on-black letters. The small white-on-blue UK discs you often see in Halfords and AA shops are not valid. You can dispense with the UK oval sticker on the rear as follows:
Most countries accept a standard format where the UK is on the bottom of a left strip of the rear and front number plates in a contrasting colour. **
The rest of the plate is up to you. You can have anything on the left top bit, including a flag or an EV icon or nothing etc. And any small text on the bottom (where car dealers typically put their company name). You can have any colour line running around the inside of the plate.
A plate for a UK car has various mandatory requirements, including a Very small certification rubric on the bottom right (which includes a code for the plate’s supplier); a background colour of front white and rear yellow; and various limits on the font. The green stripe indicating an EV isn’t mandatory, and nor is any UK designation required.
* [Over and above all of the number plate layout options, you can be certain that if you stick a UN-compliant country code sticker on the back of the car then you are fine anywhere in the EU and beyond. Note that this has its own strict specification (although the rules are much simpler) defined in the UN's Geneva Convention on Road Traffic 1949 and the Vienna Convention on Road Traffic 1968 plus the EU Supplementary Agreement 1971. In summary, it has to be a large oval with black roman letters on a white background and use the ISO country code.]
** [To summarise - If a UK code is present on the number plate it must be on both the front and back plates and
- The Union flag is optional.
- A UK code alone can be on either side of the plate.
- A UK code + Union Flag can only be on the left side.
- A UK code must be in a colour that contrasts with the background.
See Annexes- Distinguishing Sign of Motor Vehicles and Trailers to International Traffic- Convention on Road Traffic on 8 November 1968", Article 37 - Distinguishing sign of the State of registration and Vienna Convention on Road Traffic (Consolidated version)
I can recommend the Plates for Cars site where you can play around with all sorts of legal and non-conformant variations of letters, stripes, country codes, margins etc. and then order the visualisation you most prefer.
Last edited by And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports. on Tue 6-08-24 20:01; edited 3 times in total
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
While I have an oval UK sticker, I did wonder who might have complained if I hadn't replaced the old GB sticker. It wouldn't be of any interest to the UK police since I have legal numberplates. Has anyone ever heard of the French gendarmes (or similar in other countries) stopping cars with non-compliant country markings?
|
|
|
|
|
|
You know it makes sense.
|
This has cropped up on car owner forums I’m on and no one has reported being stopped in France for non-conformance of their country registration, or for having a non-conformant number plate composition. For example, a lot of people leave off ‘UK’ from their front number plate i.e. they don’t bother replacing their front plate. The above is what the rules are but I don’t claim any special insight into whether they are applied.
If you do replace your number plates, consider taking the old ones along with you on your European driving holiday. If your UK plate gets damaged or broken, you won’t easily be able to get a replacement, if at all. Driving around with no plate at all is likely to be of much more concern to a foreign traffic officer than a minor formatting issue on an otherwise OK plate.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
|
It puzzles me ...
Why on earth did Borris decide to change the historic GB to UK ?
Was it to "cock a snook" at the EU after Brexit?
GB was just fine, everyone recognised it, now people think UK ?
What Ukrainians ... with the steering on the wrong side?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Poster: A snowHead
|
|
GB doesn't include Northern Ireland.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
| DrLawn wrote: |
It puzzles me ...
Why on earth did Borris decide to change the historic GB to UK ?
Was it to "cock a snook" at the EU after Brexit?
|
For no good reason, I had always assumed the EU demanded it post-Brexit.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
|
|
PS thanks all, I think I'll just get a big ole magnetic one- seems to suit everyone!
|
|
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
| HilbertSpace wrote: |
| GB doesn't include Northern Ireland. |
so what players did they use in the GB days?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
| phil_w wrote: |
| so what players did they use in the GB days? |
They used GB, which was obviously wrong as Northern Ireland isn't in Great Britain.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
The Iso code for the UK is GB or GBR.
https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#search
Presumably this is why it was originally adopted for the plates until chose to change for "reasons".
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Out of curiosity what happens with identification plates such as GBM. The Isle of Man is not in the UK so, of course, cannot use that identity. I suppose they stick to GBM. I do not think they usually use that ID when travelling to the UK but I have seen it in France.
The next question concerns the use of numberplate recognition systems for speed cameras toll charges etc. Do they search for the nationality sticker as well as the numberplate. If so how do they know where to look and what happens if you do not have one on? Or indeed if you have SMOM (assuming that you can actually get one made up).
The distinctive nature of different country vehicle registrations probably makes it irrelevant anyway. If it starts with a 1 (or sometimes 2 or Q on a trailer, which could confuse matters as I once had a motorbike whose registration started with a Q) then it is Belgian. I do sometimes mix up Luxembourg plates with some of the esoteric British plates. Of course military plates and a really old vintage plate such as A1 on a Mini Cooper could prove a challenge. Even bigger challenge would be if the king decided to drive his official car to Vaduz to see the Daniel Risch via Switzerland.
Ps more than once I have driven across Europe have lost my GB plate on the way and nothing happened.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
It was Grant Schapps who dictated to the relevant UN authority that henceforth, the UK would use ‘UK’ as its standard international designation, instead of GB.
This was in response to the then crisis over the border in the Irish Sea issue. It was meant to make the Ulster Unionists feel happy that they were being sacrificed on the altar of ‘Get Brexit Done’.
It all backfired somewhat when the Tory tabloids’ knee-jerk reaction was to post headlines about the EU ‘taking the Great out of Great Britain’. Some furious Tory backbenchers even protested in the Commons. Not realising that this was nothing to do with the EU - the body certifying country designations is part of the UN. And it was the UK government that made the change request. Then it all went quiet when they all realised it was another self-inflicted act of Ministerial incompetence.
Note that the then Home Office Minister kept a very low profile over this, realising that it was going to add nothing to concerns over the Irish Sea border and probably annoy a lot of voters who now had to get new number plates for their European holiday driving. Which is why your passport retains the established ISO designation of GBR as the nationality code. And so now your car and your passport have different designations.
Tory apologists say that it was merely a reasonable edit to reflect more accurately that Northern Ireland is part of the UK. In which case, why wasn’t the change also implemented for passports? My assumption is that it was recognised as a stupid move by Schapps that did nothing to help the DUP situation; was going to cost motorists money for no gain; and would generate a load of bad publicity around the nationalist association of GB with imperial greatness, rather than state composition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
|
|
@LaForet, Interesting, Ta.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I doubt if having GBR in Northern Irish passports made the slightest difference to the population. I thought they had all applied for Irish passports anyway to retain all the privileges associated with them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
|
@LaForet, I miss read your informative post at first I thought it said:
"It was Giant Schnapps who dictated"
I think it could well have been too much partying that caused it.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
