I have just had an interesting conversation over several pastis' and a bottle of vin rouge (that will do to excuse the spelling and grammar!). An owner of a French registered Prius visited London recently and tried to register his Prius as qualifying for 100% discount on the congestion charge by using his French regn. The system will not accept his regn details. However ithe system will accept French Regn details if you wish to register to pay the cahrge.
He pursued the the issue and discovered that apparently the 'system' needs to check (without manual intervention) against the DVLA records that the vehicle genuinely qualifies for a zero charge. It obviuosly cannot do this for foregn vehicles. He was told that he would not be pursued for use of a foreign vehicle anyway so that he need not bother to register any foreign vehicle in the future. He also got the impression that foreign plates would not be automatically read so computer records of continued access (abuse?) are not available.
Any comments?
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pmh (was peter)
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It's correct, APNR would bounce and recognition would have to be done "by hand" by one of the operators. I know that TFL and Capita tried and sent a lot of penalty notices to foreign car owners last year at great expense, but there are no true legal grounds to demand penalties for what basically is a toll across borders.
In a manner of speaking it's no different than a mayor of some god forsaken village in proverbial Principality of Krakosia trying to internationally execute some silly penalty for minor contravention, such as walking on grass in the park.
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[Nissan 2.2 dCi are NOT Renault engines. Grrr...]
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It is still so so simple to swap plates from one car to another if you want to dodge the charge. Just make sure you don't park on the street within the zone or one of the checking vans will see you and clamp you.
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Any comments?
Re. loopholes? Buy a minibus, and avoid the charge, and use bus lanes. That'll help congestion!!
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Re. loopholes? Buy a minibus and avoid the charge and use bus lanes. That'll help congestion!!
Or better yet - Land Rover Defender 9 Seat Station Wagon - they are exempt as buses as well!
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[Nissan 2.2 dCi are NOT Renault engines. Grrr...]
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What is a station wagon?
A shooting brake :D
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[Nissan 2.2 dCi are NOT Renault engines. Grrr...]
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