Coincidence

[njee20]

Carrying on NN's tangential tangent of accidentally amusing number plates:



For another train one, renowned OO gauge modeller (and petrol head) James Makin has GM66 EWS on his Focus RS; not personalised per se, he was just able to choose it on delivery.

[Trainfish]

My wife has CPK as part of her numberplate. She wasn't too impressed when I told her it stood for Cabbage Patch Kid. True story 

[Bealman]

This the number plate on my car (really!) - rather unfortunate, in recent times, methinks! 

[daffy]

DOH 

Not just a reaction to George's currently unfortunate number plate, but part of our own as 'Simpsons' fans when we got it in the '90's.

[PLD]

Back to the original 'coincidence' theme of the OP... A previous car of mine was a silver Astra hatchback *336***. On two different occasions at motorway services I spotted *366*** which was a silver Astra estate.

[Newportnobby]

I had a company Renault Laguna S356 WOF in silver to travel countrywide as a Sales Manager.
At some point my firm started getting parking/speeding fines from London areas and I never drove in London (used train/tube).
My car had been spotted somewhere and some other sod in another silver Laguna was using my plates to get away with his activities. Swine.
The cops did get him, though

[Nbodger]

I had a company Renault Laguna S356 WOF in silver to travel countrywide as a Sales Manager.
At some point my firm started getting parking/speeding fines from London areas and I never drove in London (used train/tube).
My car had been spotted somewhere and some other sod in another silver Laguna was using my plates to get away with his activities. Swine.
The cops did get him, though

I apparently went through a red light on the East Lancs Road, but my car was parked in the office car park in Barton on Humber. Yep it had been cloned.

[Trainfish]

I was parked in Ryde on the IOW a few years ago and came back to find a parking ticket on the windscreen (yeah yeah, ticket to Ryde etc) but rather than putting RLH as part of my registration number the warden had put RHL instead. So some poor sod somewhere who has probably never been to the IOW would have got my parking ticket 
This was long before they started taking photographs so I never heard any more about it 

[daffy]

Our ** DOH plate was first put on a new Astra CD that turned out to be such a 'Friday afternoon' badly built car that, after 5000 miles and some bitter wrangles and numerous failed attempts by the dealer to repair it (including a complete new dashboard), we got them to replace it with a new one.
When we went to do the exchange, just for a while there were two silver Astra's on the forecourt with identical plates. Not a coincidence, but odd to see all the same.

I once followed another almost identical DOH plate, though the car was not the same make.

I've also experienced the cloned car situation with that same plate, which we still have (it's on it's fifth vehicle now). While I was in Malvern in 2015 it seems I was involved in a hit and run in Liverpool. Police caught up with the  .

[javlinfaw7]

A friend of mine a few years ago had a letter from london for congestion charges amounting  to a fair amount  , he queried this as his Lorry had never left the west of Scotland. However he was sent a picture of a Leyland Constructor tipper with his plate ,he was able to prove that at the time of some of the events he was delivering concrete from his mixer in Glasgow. I don't know if they caught the cloned lorry

[guest311]

I was parked in Ryde on the IOW a few years ago and came back to find a parking ticket on the windscreen (yeah yeah, ticket to Ryde etc) but rather than putting RLH as part of my registration number the warden had put RHL instead. So some poor sod somewhere who has probably never been to the IOW would have got my parking ticket 
This was long before they started taking photographs so I never heard any more about it 

a dyslexic traffic warden, or one in a rush to make his daily total ?

and don't tell me they don't have targets 

[guest311]

A friend of mine a few years ago had a letter from london for congestion charges amounting  to a fair amount  , he queried this as his Lorry had never left the west of Scotland. However he was sent a picture of a Leyland Constructor tipper with his plate ,he was able to prove that at the time of some of the events he was delivering concrete from his mixer in Glasgow. I don't know if they caught the cloned lorry

probably not, after all it would require some one to get off their backside and actually patrol the road with an ANPR camera, or set an alert for that, and other cloned numbers, on the ANPR system.

off topic, but I was once stopped by plod outside Oxford while driving an RAF artic for 'displaying a different reg number on the rear of the vehicle from that on the front of the vehicle'.

ex military will know why this was farcical, anyway after several minutes of trying to explain to the errrr officer, I told him to get on his talking broach and check with someone who knew what they were talking about.
much moaning and groaning but in the end he did so, then came back to the truck and said he was going to check the load.

we discussed this, and the procedures involved, and the repercussions if he did not follow them, and in the end he gave up, followed me all the way back to Brize, at 40mph  and then got into an argument with the gate guards [forewarned by me that he was a total  ] as whether he could just drive onto the camp.

he lost that one as well 

[Trainfish]

I was parked in Ryde on the IOW a few years ago and came back to find a parking ticket on the windscreen (yeah yeah, ticket to Ryde etc) but rather than putting RLH as part of my registration number the warden had put RHL instead. So some poor sod somewhere who has probably never been to the IOW would have got my parking ticket 
This was long before they started taking photographs so I never heard any more about it 

a dyslexic traffic warden, or one in a rush to make his daily total ?

and don't tell me they don't have targets 

My ex always said the RLH stood for Rush Like Hell so you're probably right 

I used to know a traffic warden (dead now but nothing to do with his work as far as I know) and yes, he had targets to reach set by the town council.

[The Q]

I know of a story many years ago when the military were paid in cash
where plod gave a military vehicle parked outside a bank a lot of hassle.. They were collecting the cash to pay the RAF station..
The following week plod stuck his head in the window to start giving hassle he found himself looking into the muzzle of a sten gun...

I've had a snowdrop try to charge me for driving on the wrong side of the road...
A one way street and I was turning right......

At one point I carried a black brief case handcuffed to my wrist, and a letter saying dear Mr policeman do as this man says...sadly I never got to use the letter..

Used the have an ancient Anglia van, 998cc engine... It's number plate began MGT.. a more inappropriate plate I can't think of...

[guest311]

ahhh, the bank run...

remenber them when I was in NI.
MT driver
Snowdrop as escort
Accounts officer. fur box mechanic + brain on a chain in the back.

vehicle was a J2, with a cashbox bolted into the back, which was held open with a V shaped wedge on the way to the bank, when the cash went into the box, the wedge was removed and the box locked itself.

key held in accounts back at base.

and of course this led to pay parades .......

JENKINS !

Sir - 244

salute with right hand, left out for pay...
sign here
salute
about turn

Foxtrot Oscar

and don't even think of checking your pay at the pay table 

good old days before everything was through banks.

IIRC, and it was a long time ago, I had my pay paid into my bank when I was in the Gulf, but got my local allowance at pay parade, in dinars and fils.

then down the provost club for lunch 

happy days