OT: For spotters of unusual odometer readings...

Got 121,500 on my Mondeo.... What's yout point?

That it won't reach 160807 miles???

You could always get back to us IF you reach that milestone......

It would actualy be really odd if the numbers on your odometer didn't match some significant date or combination of numbers sometimes.

One day the lottery numbers will be 1,2,3,4,5,6. in that order - nothing statistically odd about that, but the papers would be full of it for weeks.

Many people have little knowledge of the laws of probability.

What's the probability that a randomly selected person would have little knowledge of the laws of probability?

In article , 'Nel' scribeth thus

Just one that cost as much as it was worth to sort the engine out, only X reg!.

Every MOT it seemed as if it needed a rebuild of something or other......

Person x person x person divided by knowledge x knowledge.

Or very high indeed. I regulary use an effect in my macic act where what appears too be a 2-1 bet against me, where I am paying even money fleeces (only in fun) the punter because it's actually a 3-2 freezeout bet in my favour.

'Gambling Scams' by Darwin Ortiz is the modern seminal work on the subject. 'Scarne on Gambling' by John Scarne is the history.

Harrumph! Was driving my Mk II escort in Liverpool about 15 years ago ..at the time the car was about 9 years old.... (or thereabouts) My plate was UKD 92V. Stopped at the lights and realised the car in front was UKD 93V...was doing a double take while the car behind me cut inside to reveal the car behind it was UKD 95V.

Arthur

My Kangoo van is NA03 LHD. I were having a bacon roll at a local burger van & a lorry driver told me he had a Renault reg NA02 LHD.

But as I said, statistically it isn't unlikely.

Any on ng Statisticians around, probability of that happening please!?...

So, how's Debs getting on with her new baby boy? And did Yell give you the right number for Persimmon Homes? ;)

Oh, and hope you have a nice time with Rich and Claire tomorrow.

It's amazing what information you can pick up from photos and URLs/Whois. ;)

I think that's an understatement, given the way licence plate numbers are generated. Esp. if you take into consideration fleet cars and how the same company (eg car hire) registers a shedload of cars of the same spec more or less, at the same region, year after year after year.

Kostas

Kostas Kavoussanakis ( snipped-for-privacy@epcc.ed.ac.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

The chances of it happening with the current reg system are far lower than with the old system.

I'm assuming that UKD was a local letter combination around Liverpool - that'd massively increase the chances of three cars bearing similar plates "meeting".

For Medway Handyman, the chances are much more remote, as the only local part of the plate now is the first two characters - and NA is Newcastle- upon-Tyne LVLO, which isn't *quite* as far from Medway as it's possible to get, but close...

Also - there are something like 10,000 people use these numbers every week; so if they did come up, the pay-out to individuals would be comparatively small

I make it exactly 81.786%

What - that he had NA02 LHD?

I would have thought that that was very unlikely !!

(I think you need to be a bit more precise on what was unlikely)

judith ( snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

But would the truck driver have also commented if he'd had NB03LHD, NA04LHD, or any of a whole bunch of other "similar" registrations.

If you were going to play the lottery, then what you really need is to use the *least* popular set of numbers to maximise your chances of keeping the bulk of a big win.

The fleet car theory is fine but mine and the others cars were V reg which was about

Arthur

Shush! 'Debs' might be Medway's fancy piece.

Arthur