A sunday morning thought. Why us it the vast majority of UK trailers use square number plates where as the vast majority of european trailers use rectangle ones?
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El Deano:
A sunday morning thought. Why us it the vast majority of UK trailers use square number plates where as the vast majority of european trailers use rectangle ones?Sent from my SM-G903F using Tapatalk
Tradition, I expect. Well, that and the fact that most of our European bretheren register their trailers as independent road vehicles 
Robert
Presumably because European trailers have their own registration numbers and therefore the number plate is permanently affixed to the trailer, whereas UK trailers have a different number plate for every tractor unit which tows it, and it’s easier to mount a square number plate in a temporary holder.
Harry Monk:
Presumably because European trailers have their own registration numbers and therefore the number plate is permanently affixed to the trailer, whereas UK trailers have a different number plate for every tractor unit which tows it, and it’s easier to mount a square number plate in a temporary holder.
Spanish trailers have the red permanent plates, and white tractor number plates on temporary mounts.
They use rectangular plates with no problems it seems? No real reason that rectangular plates are harder to fix than a square one?
Isn`t it just a standard that has evolved?
The German and Dutch have those natty little clips to hold the standard plates, the Belgians have little todgers in red & white
Wheel Nut:
The German and Dutch have those natty little clips to hold the standard plates, the Belgians have little todgers in red & white
I won’t ask how you know this 
square number plates stand more being chucked about .
Square ones are easier to forget and remove before backing onto a bay … 
raymundo:
Square ones are easier to forget and remove before backing onto a bay …
and just the right size for setting your gas stove on or your takeaway curry dish
and make better frizbees than rectangular ones
Dont know the official answer but square ones fit in the door pocket a lot more easily and seem more robust. The holders on the other hand are usually a lot less solid.
I remember when you needed some bit of rubber inner tube to keep the plate on nowadays it’s not really needed although if I kept the same trailer/unit I’d source one
bald bloke:
I remember when you needed some bit of rubber inner tube to keep the plate on nowadays it’s not really needed although if I kept the same trailer/unit I’d source one
Or rubber ties off a tilt!
Franglais:
Isn`t it just a standard that has evolved?
Maybe. It was quite common for cars to have square number plates back in the day.
It’s because this is Britain, and in Britain we do things a little differently.
Nearly the whole world drives on the right? Tosh! We’ll drive on the left.
Cricket and football… we can invent two of the most world-encompassing sports, but shall we play them at a world leading level? I think not, dear boy!
Shall we make our trailer number plates match those on our units? No! That’s exactly what those beastly Europeans would expect us to do!
The metric system is good, but it would be too simple to adopt it entirely so let’s sprinkle a little imperial in there. Oh, and while we’re at it, we will use a different sort of imperial to the one the Americans use… except sometimes it’s the same. Bloody Americans.
We’re a proud sea faring nation. One of the select few to be able to launch aircraft from ships. That seems like quite a straightforward situation. Let’s build two new carriers, but only buy enough aircraft for one of them, and while we’re waiting for the project to complete, let’s entirely scrap our current carrier fleet. Take that, France!
We’re a congested nation. Our trunk motorways are, in technical terms, FUBAR. Now, steady yourselves chaps, we’re going to give a consortium of mostly German, French and Chinese firms a stupendously large contract to build… an additional high speed rail line.
Actually, whilst we’re on the subject of building things, we’re going to take longer and spend more money turning the hard shoulder of a few bits of motorway into a semi-live lane… than the Hong Kong airport project that involved building an entire island, a tunnel, the worlds longest suspension bridge, a high speed rail line, a new motorway and a port extension.
I nearly forgot, speed limits and bridge heights. Instead of simply marking what they are, we will mostly mark what they are, but have some special signs that mean different speeds according to the different type of road and vehicle… and sometimes, let’s use no signs at all. Capital! But it doesn’t seem confusing enough, Jenkins, there’s something missing… Ah yes! Bridge heights! We will display most of them in metric and imperial, except when we don’t display them. Oh, and we will make some of them advisory and some of them mandatory. That should keep the blighters guessing!
At the risk of eating our cake and having it too, we should create a strange loophole where a cake that tastes like orange flavoured cardboard is actually a biscuit… or perhaps vice versa…
I never realised we used square number plates 
slowlane:
It’s because this is Britain, and in Britain we do things a little differently.Nearly the whole world drives on the right? Tosh! We’ll drive on the left.
Cricket and football… we can invent two of the most world-encompassing sports, but shall we play them at a world leading level? I think not, dear boy!
Shall we make our trailer number plates match those on our units? No! That’s exactly what those beastly Europeans would expect us to do!
The metric system is good, but it would be too simple to adopt it entirely so let’s sprinkle a little imperial in there. Oh, and while we’re at it, we will use a different sort of imperial to the one the Americans use… except sometimes it’s the same. Bloody Americans.
We’re a proud sea faring nation. One of the select few to be able to launch aircraft from ships. That seems like quite a straightforward situation. Let’s build two new carriers, but only buy enough aircraft for one of them, and while we’re waiting for the project to complete, let’s entirely scrap our current carrier fleet. Take that, France!
We’re a congested nation. Our trunk motorways are, in technical terms, FUBAR. Now, steady yourselves chaps, we’re going to give a consortium of mostly German, French and Chinese firms a stupendously large contract to build… an additional high speed rail line.
Actually, whilst we’re on the subject of building things, we’re going to take longer and spend more money turning the hard shoulder of a few bits of motorway into a semi-live lane… than the Hong Kong airport project that involved building an entire island, a tunnel, the worlds longest suspension bridge, a high speed rail line, a new motorway and a port extension.
I nearly forgot, speed limits and bridge heights. Instead of simply marking what they are, we will mostly mark what they are, but have some special signs that mean different speeds according to the different type of road and vehicle… and sometimes, let’s use no signs at all. Capital! But it doesn’t seem confusing enough, Jenkins, there’s something missing… Ah yes! Bridge heights! We will display most of them in metric and imperial, except when we don’t display them. Oh, and we will make some of them advisory and some of them mandatory. That should keep the blighters guessing!
At the risk of eating our cake and having it too, we should create a strange loophole where a cake that tastes like orange flavoured cardboard is actually a biscuit… or perhaps vice versa…
That is so true, love it, 