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1960 - 1992 CHANGES OF THE EVIDENCE
SYSTEM
Changes of the evidence system
The evidence system from 1953 distinguished, by the first letter from the
left, passenger cars (O, P, R), utility vehicles (N, B), motorcycles (K,
L, M), tractors (T, J) and trailers (V, H); at the end of the decade, the
remaining letters of the alphabet were added. Second letter may have or
may have not denoted the regional origin of the vehicles. The creators of
this system did not suspect that at the end of 1950s, the numbers of
passenger cars will match and surpass those of motorcycles. Thus, the
system which was only about 7 years old fell into crisis, and a new
solution had to be found. The regional coding from before 1953 thus
returned, however, this time, without the one-letter land code. At first
sight, the SPZs were same as after 1953 (PP-99-99), however, they had
different meaning. On top of this, duplicity was introduced, the last drop
to induce perfect chaos. The same alphanumerical code could be assigned to
five categories of vehicles at the same time. This unbelievable practice
survived up until 1994! For example, this could lead to a situation where
in 1963, six vehicles with the same license plate KT-12-34 could appear at
the same parking lot. First would be registered as a motorcycle in 1956,
no matter where, second as a motorcycle in Klatovy region in 1963, and the
remaining would be a passenger car, a utility vehicle, a tractor and a
trailer, all from the Klatovy region. The license plates were not replaced
en masse, instead, regional authorities tried to solve the greatest
discrepancies locally Besides, the steady increase in newly registered
vehicles and common turnover caused by reregistering from one region to
another meant that a third number had to be added to the regional code.
Thus, the PZA, ABA, OVA, BMA and other codes were born. Series once
exhausted were not recycled. This meant that when the full series for the
city of Ostrava coded OV-99-99 ran out, it did not start again with OV-00-01
and instead, new series OVA-00-01 started. The colours of license plates
remained unchanged, only in 1970s, plates for rental cars in red and white
were added. At the same time, license plates for small trailers coded 99-PP-99
or 99-PPP-99 appeared, and also the infamous “prominent” series AA-99-99
were launched. Vehicles with this license plate were exempt from the
normal evidence system and they were used by the top officials of the
communist regime, in the untouchable hierarchy superior even to those of
diplomats. To bother a driver of such limousine for wrong parking, or
trying to stop these vehicles could be rather unfortunate for such a
reckless traffic warden. The Warsaw pact invasion to Czechoslovakia after
August 21, 1968, deserves a mention here. The license plate registration
system was among the rare areas which were not directly influenced by the
invasion. The only exception was the fact that the appropriate departments
at the Interior Ministry were staffed by comrades cross-checked for their
political reliability. The “visiting” armies kept their military
registration plates and this was so until the last Soviet troops left the
country on June 30, 1991. Numbers of cars still increased and the material
of which license plates were made, a special aluminium alloy, was not
exactly cheap. This is why, as an economic measure, the plates were cut
down in size in 1986 to 485 × 95 mm, lettering 64 × 33 mm, stroke width 8
mm, while their colours and codes remained unchanged. Shortly before that,
the colours of diplomatic and foreign plates changed from red and yellow
to yellow and blue. The black and yellow double-line plates with bevel
upper corners were only made for tractors, and in 1994, they disappeared
altogether. The dash between the letter and number section also disapeared,
because from 1979, space was needed for the STK sticker (Vehicle Safety
Inspection), and later for the emission check sticker. The STK sticker had
funny evolution. Because the first vehicle safety inspection facilities
were imported from the imperialist West Germany, the first Czechoslovak
STK sticker was in fact a not very well made copy of its German
counterpart, the HU sticker (Hauptuntersuchungsplakette). Then, it was
remade over and over again, until our own, functional model was released,
as we know it today: its validity date is marked with a pair of tweezers.
Author: Petr Marinov, Translate: Olga
Neumanová
Published by TYPO (typography · graphic design · visual communication)
TYPO.28 - August 2007
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