new old license plates

Have you noticed that the new Manila license plates have resurrected the letters N and P as starting letters? Are you wondering if we are re-using old plate numbers?

Since I sit in traffic for a long time to and from work, I have mulled over this plate number thing a number of times:

No, we aren't re-using old plate numbers. I used to play the alphabet license plate game with my brother when I was a kid. We would look for the letters A to Z on license plates. So I am absolutely sure that old license plates did NOT use the letters I, O and Q.

So when N and P are resurrected, the letters I, O or Q are also used in the combination to ensure the new plates are unique.

Like I said, I have pondered about this a lot in traffic. So I've gone to the extent of calculating how many cars each resurrected letter is equivalent to. Now, please excuse the nerdiness because Permutations and Combinations is the only Math topic I enjoyed in school. 

1 (to represent each resurrected letter) x 3 (I, O, Q) x 26 (all letters in the alphabet) x 10 (0 to 9) x 10 x 10 = 76,000 license plates.

So everytime a letter is resurrected, that means an additional 76,000 cars were given license plates! So when N, P, T, U, W, X and Z have all been resurrected, there will be a total of 624,000 additional cars on the road! Aaagggghhhh! I cannot imagine how long I will be stuck in traffic when that time comes! But I wonder what other mundane things I will end up thinking about with all the more time in traffic?

Photos from i'mjustsaying and fromainsley.