Europe
In the European Union, white or yellow number plates of a common format and size are issued throughout, although they are still optional in some member states. Nevertheless, some individual member states still use differing non-EU formats - Belgium, for example, still permits vehicles to display the older small white number plates with red lettering, and the license plates that are issued by the government body which assigns these are of the smaller format, too. In 1908 number plates were only 3 Numbers and 1 letter long. Italy still permits smaller plates to be attached to the front of a vehicle, while the rear plate complies to the usual EU format. The common design consists of a blue strip on the left of the plate, which has the EU motif (12 yellow stars), along with the country code of the member state in which the vehicle was registered.
Lettering on the plate must be black on a white or yellow reflective background. With this EU format, vehicles are no longer required to carry an international code plate or sticker for traveling between member states. The non-EU states of Switzerland, Norway and Turkey also recognise the blue strip instead of the traditional white oval with the country code in black.
Germany has selected a typeface which is called fälschungserschwerende Schrift (abbr.: FE-Schrift), meaning "falsification-hindering script". It is designed so that, for example, the O cannot be adjusted to look like a Q, or vice versa; nor can the P be painted to resemble an R, amongst other changes. This typeface can more easily be read by radar or visual license-plate reading machines, but can be harder to read with the naked eye, especially when the maximum allowed number of 8 characters in "Engschrift" (narrower script used when available space is limited) are printed on the plate.
Diplomatic plates are usually denoted by the letters "CD" in Europe which stands for Corps Diplomatique located usually at the beginning of the number plate (France, Belgium) or middle (Holland). The United Kingdom uses "D" for "diplomat".
Read more about this topic: Vehicle Registration Plate
Famous quotes containing the word europe:
“Should the German people lay down their arms, the Soviets ... would occupy all eastern and south-eastern Europe together with the greater part of the Reich. Over all this territory, which with the Soviet Union included, would be of enormous extent, an iron curtain would at once descend.”
—Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945)
“Positively I sit here, and look at Europe sink, first one deck disappearing, then another, and the whole ship slowly plunging bow-down into the abyss; until the nightmare gets to be howling. The Roman Empire was a trifle to it.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“In Europe the object is to make the most of their land, labour being abundant: here it is to make the most of our labour, land being abundant.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)