is covered, in part or whole, by cargo or attached parts, such as bicycle carriers. Serial letters and digits The final identifier or of the licence plate consists of one or two letters, followed by a number of up to four digits. Thus, basically any combination from A1 to ZZ9999 is possible, yet restricted by the maximum length of eight characters, including the area code. All 26 letters of the Latin alphabet may be used, yet this was not always so. In order to avoid confusion between B and 8, F and E, G and 6, I and 1, O and Q and 0, those six letters were excluded from the middle part of registration plates. In 1992, the letters B, F and G were permitted, and in 2000 the alphabet was completed as I, O and Q have been allowed. In the very first months of the numbering system, between July and November 1956, the letter I was used but J was not. This was soon reversed, but single vintage cars kept sporting their letter I between 1956 and 2000 when it was re-introduced. In the style used until 1994, a hyphen following the area code was used to separate the two groups of letters. This does no longer appear in the new format but is often retained, as the space between the geographic identifier and serial letters is a significant character and must be considered when writing down or transmitting a number. For example, F ST 683 is different from FS T 683. The risk of confusion can be avoided by writing a hyphen after the city code, like F-ST 683. For this reason, the police will usually radio the location name and spell out the next letters, using the German telephone alphabet. Thus, F ST 683 would be radioed as and FS T 683 as . If the officer should not know the meaning of the area code, he would spell it out too, such as , etc. While the number is issued by each district authority separately, a probable split between two or more districts sharing the same area code has to be considered. Further restrictions are caused by “prohibited” combinations (see below). Personalised plates For an extra charge of €10.20, vehicle owners can register a personalised identifier, keeping to the above rules. In most cases of personalised plates, owners choose their initials and a number