Other than the police, is there anywhere that I can report a car is missing it's numberplate?
Long & short of it is, there is a Metro in our village that has been missing it's rear numberplate since mid November last year. The car is used frequently by it's owner, but I don't know her personally to casually mention it to her. Not that she's unaware it's missing of course -- it's been led face down on the parcel shelf since it fell off. Duh!!
I've telephoned the local nick a couple of times, and got the usual 'we'll look into it sir'.
A ploice patrol car drives through the village on a weekly basis, but still the car is missing it's rear numberplate. It's not as if it's unoticable, because most of the time the Metro is parked on the main road through the village and is clearly visible.
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Lets hope the MOT is due any day now, and not in 11 months time!
The police need to catch up with her-for the sake of speeding through speed cameras and getting away with it, through to accidents and no one being able to get the reg. Just the same for dirty number plates.
There is law about leaving un-plated vehicles on the public highway, but if the front plate is on I presume that law doesn't count. The police need to pay a visit to the registered keepers house and have words as to the state of the vehicle.
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Straight fixed penalty offence whether the front plate is there or not.
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Doesn't it get a bit more serious if done deliberately??
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Could be reported for summons and let the beak decide, but the chances that the line of least resistance would be taken.
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Difficult to put my point of view on this without appearing to be insulting which I honestly don't intend to be, but why not just forget it and get on with life?
We can't go round reporting everyone for everything.
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Difficult to put my point of view on this without appearing to be insulting which I honestly don't intend to be, but why not just forget it and get on with life? We can't go round reporting everyone for everything.
That's very true Tom. Maybe I'm just a bit narked that within five minutes of having a headlight bulb blow, I get pulled twice in the same evening and then have to go through the hasstle of once replacing the bulb, popping down to see the local MOT guy to verify it's been fixed.
I would have normally changed the bulb there and then, but I had played good samaritan (re defenders comment) by letting a mate have my spare bulb the day before as his headlight had blown ;-(
Sour grapes -- you bet.
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"That's very true Tom. Maybe I'm just a bit narked that within five minutes of having a headlight bulb blow, I get pulled twice in the same evening and then have to go through the hasstle of once replacing the bulb, popping down to see the local MOT guy to verify it's been fixed."
I see where you're coming from there, Caveman. Especially when every other car you see is driving round with Chavlights blazing to the total disinterest of the boys in blue.
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no disrespect meant here but up here in the far wilds of the north someone would have offered to fix it for her by now ,theres always some who just dont get round to fixing things like that.you could try that approach,it might be someone really nice
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Defender,
The common sense approach !
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more likely she has been done by camera recently and is taking the sensible option (in her mind) of driving round like this, any penalty will be less than another speeding ticket, and more likely any copper would let her off with a warning, remember speeding points are only for the honest
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I'm sure that it's not doing any harm to other road users. In my view, having a number plate missing is a very minor technicality. And as Paul Ripley says, it's not up to us mere mortals to chastise motoring wrongdoers.
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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I'm sure that it's not doing any harm to other road users.
But what happens when it does harm other road users? By that I mean either a small scrape in a carpark, or running over someone. If the car hasn't got a number plate then how are any potential witnesses / cctv going to get the offending registration?
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<<........either a small scrape in a carpark, orrunning over someone. If the car hasn't got a number plate then how are any potential witnesses / cctv going to get the offending registration?
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If someone were to be run over by a hit-and-run driver, it probably wouldn't make any difference whether the car had a rear number plate or not. I would imagine that most hit-and-run drivers are in stolen cars anyway. If it wasn't a stolen car, anyone with a "hit-and-run" mentality would probably just set fire to the car and then claim that they weren't driving the car and that it had been stolen from them prior to the accident.
In the case of "a small scape in a car park", most owners of the damaged car would be philosophical about it and either not get the damage repaired or they would claim on their insurance. Isn't that one of the reasons we have insurance?
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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As you do not know the owner, then why not place a note under the windscreen wiper alerting them to the missing number plate along with a comment about the penalty that could be incurred.
You will feel better at having done something posative to remedy the fault and then you cannot be blamed if at a later date the Police do decide to act (even if you did contact them).
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Pugugly
How do the police summons the keeper if they don't stop her when she is driving? The owner could be someone else and unaware of the state of the vehicle. I was referring to cases such as in London where motorbikes park up and then cover their numberplates with a plastic bag to hide the registration-traffic wardens can't issue a ticket becasue no reg, and they can't tamper with the plastic bag to uncover the plate. But then you have a vehicle on the public highway without a reg number. Who would the police prosecute then?
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I doubt whether they would summons without actually reporting the driver and/or owner. (Speaking to them in the process). Normal practice would be for a (rare) Police patrol to stop the offending driver, choice then (depending on a number of factors) would be to issue a fixed penalty notice or report for summons. ANPR patrols tend to book any non compliant plates (dodgy fonts, strange spacing or a missing plate) if ANPR fails to read the plate. Local Police are very big on ANPR around here.
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As you do not know the owner, then why not place a note under the windscreen wiper
Waste of time trying. As I mentioned earlier, the numberplate is currently lead face down on the parcel shelf, so it's not as if she knows it's missing. I mentioned it in the village shop this morning and I havent been the only one to comment on it. Apparantly she has been told about it by her neigbour and they got a 'I couldnt really care' type anwser. I wonder if she'll care when the police eventually catch up with her?
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Instead of a note, why not mock up a Fixed Penalty Notice on the pc and put that on the windscreen instead?
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I have to go with Tom on this one. You live in a village, there seems nothing you can do except tell the police, the police if told will probably do nothing or if they do she will find out who grassed her up, the police can not be relied upon to keep this secret.
You have all the beginning of a good old fashioned feud and for what? She's got a back number plate missing. Yes it is possible that she could pull off an armed robbery and run 20 school children over whilst escaping and no one notices her front number plate but most likely nothing will happen other than possibly the state missing out on a bit of revenue from the scameras.
If she reported you for the blown bulb you describe how would you feel?
If its countrified where you live how many farmers drive unlicenced farm vehicles short distances on the roads, or fail to clean the road afterwards, you going to report them too?
Let it go, lifes too short...
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Leave her alone. She is breaking the law and will either remedy the fault herself or it will be sorted out by the boys in blue. I deplore the recent move towards expecting people to report others for actual ar suspected violations of some rule or regulation. You can bet your boots that the 'reporters' have their own skeletons which they would be upset to find in the public domain. The whole sleazy exercise reminds me of the days of fascism and communism, ugh. None of us is perfect. Get a life of your own.
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Get a life of your own.
I think we're sidetracking from the original question here, which was who other than the police can the matter be reported to? I do hope your comment was tongue in cheek? Previous posters have enquired about who they can report abandoned vehicles or tax disc evaders to. They are also motoring offences, as is knowingly not displaying a registration plate (as Caveman suggests she is)
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I apologize unreservedly if anyone is upset by my post but my point was made seriously about the particular problem in the original post and I mean every word. However you have the ultimate sanction and I respect your judgement.
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Perhaps a public spirited citizen could arrange to take the number plate off the shelf, and fix it back in place. Then, if it was removed again, a) there is a suspicion that madam wants to speed without detection, or b) its a police decoy to attract Metro dismantlers. I'd go for a) at 10-1!
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Perhaps a public spirited citizen could arrange to take the number plate off the shelf, and fix it back in place.
The number plate on the parcel shelf may have no connection with the vehicle. The plate is face down, so how do we know? Is the driver perhaps running a business in stolen/fake number plates? The plot thickens.
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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I had to drive around for a week with no front number plate after it fell off. I bought a sticky pad set for it the same day, but they don't work below 6 degrees so I couldn't use it.
Just placed the number plate on the dash and chanced it. Mind you, it was Devon which has about 3 police officers on the road. Eventually got it stuck on with a heat gun which did the job.
I'm sure that if I'd been pulled over I'd have been let off, as I had the number plate and the sticky pads in the car while I was driving around.
Without wanting to drag the thread off topic, how many people have been pulled over by the police? I've been driving 2 years and never had one look in my direction. *Touch wood*. Might be an interesting poll?
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Without wanting to drag the thread off topic, how many people have been pulled over by the police? I've been driving 2 years and never had one look in my direction. *Touch wood*. Might be an interesting poll?
I've been driving just over 31 years and only been pulled over by the police twice, both at roadside checks where they were pulling everybody over.
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Jesse raises an interesting question and maybe it is time for a poll, how many times have you been pulled over by the police in say the last 5 years (sort of post speed camera infestation which lead to less traffic cops)?
My answer, in the last 20 years nil.
In a car nil.
On my motorbike between the ages of 17 and 23 (yes I'm 43) more times than I can remember. Seemed at that time pulling bikes over was the cops favourite activity, at age 23 I went abroad for a couple of years and when I got back it all seemed to have calmed down.
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Occasionally around my way (maybe once a month) I see an American vehicle of some discription with no plates at all! front or rear, quite blatently breaking the law.
What's that all about?
The interesting thing is it alays seems to be an American vehicle.
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Visiting Forces Act 1952? Little sanction in UK courts against American services personnel, IIRC from visiting the Bicester area.
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Occasionally around my way (maybe once a month) I see an American vehicle of some discription with no plates at all! front or rear, quite blatently breaking the law. What's that all about?
Diplomatic immunity for an embassy official?
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L\'escargot by name, but not by nature.
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American forces in UK are NOT repeat NOT subject to UK law. If arrested and detained by the UK police American MP's come and take them back to the base (which is deemed US territory) and thats that.
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