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Oh and if they're personal plates misplaced DVLA might take them back.
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They don't mind selling you them though. Bit hypocritical me thinks. never the less its the ultimate sanction.
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If you think that plod never bother pulling cars with "unusual" plates, explain that to the women I assume is called Sasha (reg: S4SHA with the "4" leaning over) who was looking a bit fed up yesterday with two traffic cops giving her grief.
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There`s a crackdown on non standard plates in our area, running alongside what seems like saturation ANPR.
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With the Police now more reliant on the ANPR system, any car bearing a plate that can't be read by it will probably find themselves the recepient of a £30 fine by post.
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As above. If my in car ANPR can't read it, or it's blatantly taking the proverbial, expect to spend a few minutes having a chat.
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How can they, if it can't be read?
"With the Police now more reliant on the ANPR system, any car bearing a plate that can't be read by it will probably find themselves the recepient of a £30 fine by post."
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Think the chances of you being pulled depend on a lot of factors, not in any particular order.
1) What mood Mr. Plod's in today.
2) How many pulls he needs for his extra brownie point.
3) How close your plate is to what it SHOULD be.
3) How much nicer your car is than his and he's jealous.
4) How loud and offensive are your exhausts/music/paint job/passengers (delete as appropriate).
5) How many of your passengers are wearing Burberry caps back to front and lotsa bling innit?
6) Number of wheels on your chosen mode of transport ; they seem to prefer stopping bikers but I've always strongly suspected that this is a ploy to check the bike over for other things like tax disc, tyres and illegal exhaust.
Edited by Harleyman on 24/03/2008 at 10:40
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Can't say i've noticed that Harleyman.
Last time i was stopped was some 7 or so years ago, returning home from night run early hours of morning fairly close to itinerant camp, and the boys in blue just wanted to check i was the owner before the (landcruiser) reached the camp, i appreciated that, and once they confirmed my name and address they cleared off without checking anything else.
Mind you, i keep my vehicles very well, theyre clean, well maintained and fully legal, plus i don't look like the sort of person who's going to have a pocketful of stolen credit cards. And i have a normal plate thats always clean.
I don't hang about, but as mlc infered if you don't take the proverbial and do it openly with plod about, and don't have the exhaust that can be heard in the next county, you don't get bothered.
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So going back to the OP, we know its illegal but we should all do it so that we then force the plod to either take action or admit that they don't have the resources.
Once we have mastered that, we can then make plod's life difficult with blatant drugs, murders and who knows what else. Police are a finite resource, why are we on one hand saying that since they don't seem to be doing much about it, lets all join in; and then on the other hand complain when they aren't able to tackle "real" crimes.
I agree that in may be easier to remember a registration like JIMBO rather than J1 MBO but its against the law. Every registration on our road is a personal plate, every one is unique, just abide by the rules and let the police deal with other matters eh?
Edited by Webmaster on 24/03/2008 at 12:45
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Well said, BobbyG. We all know what the law is regarding number plaets. Why waste the best part of, say, £30-40 getting a set of show plates made if the police are going to come along and ask you to change them?
A guy down the road from me had a set made with the Liverpool motif added to the left of the number. Police obviously had a word and he drove around for a few weeks with a large piece of black masking tape over the offending image until, I imagine, he found his old 'legal' plates!
All a bit of a waste of time, IMHO. Even worse than all of this, however, is a 5 series that I sometimes see on the way to work. The guy has a personalised plate: T9 IJH (not real, btw). Fair enough, but then underneath he's added: Ian John Henderson's (again, used only as example) BMW. Do I really want to know your real name? Pretty sad, I think...!
AA
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I must confess that I wasn't being entirely serious gb! ;-)
Being stopped for illegal number plates is a constant moan amongst bikers though. The LEGAL minimum sizes are way too big on both aesthetic and practical grounds IMHO, and whilst I admit that some bikers take it too far it doesn't seem to affect them being spotted by Gatso's!
Most Harleys that I see have plates which would qualify as illegal in some way, but I do think it's as you say, if they don't look the dodgy type the police will generally leave them be.
As you're a lorry driver like me I believe, have you ever come across drivers being pulled for having either no plate at all, or a makeshift one on a trailer? I never have.
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As you're a lorry driver like me I believe have you ever come across drivers being pulled for having either no plate at all or a makeshift one on a trailer? I never have.
When we say 'driver' we use the term loosely, at least in my case, possibly steering wheel attendant would be a more apt description.
I'm constantly amazed at the things some get away with, i saw a truck recently where the tractor unit number plates differed front and rear and the trailer plate bore no relation to either, it may have come from over the water due west, i couldn't possibly comment. (was it a 007 commercial type i wonder).
As my transporter doesn't really separate (well it does but its a workshop job), my trailer plate is rivetted on. Just as well with my memory.
I'm surprised the bill don't clamp down more on this missing and dodgy plate lark, how the devil is some poor soul whose been stuffed into the armco supposed to get any joy when the offender clears off?
Aside from that do you remember the fashion for those numbers on the back of trucks a few years ago (0800 shop this driver etc), well i got dragged before the management for hitting a car on Kew bridge one day, unfortunately checking the running sheets proved i was in Grimethorpe at the time, now thats some serious play in the steering.
(new i was in the clear anyway as the prang was at 10am, would have been returning through the centre of London anyway for 'sightseeing' purposes. Thankyou lovely ladies).
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The thing with trailer plates, etc- I am occasionally a passenger and to occupy my attention ( sadly) I count how many vehicles towing something have the wrong or no plate on the trailer. As a percentage I have never seen as many as 50% correct.
This includes, for example, roadside recovery trucks who one assumes would have the full plate and electrics kit.
I was given a "tip" that this is a great wheeze as at the most you'll get a £30 , but prob nothing, compared to the £60 and points you could get from a camera reading your correct plate.
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>>from Mlc
>>If my in-car ANPR can't read it, or it's blatantly taking the proverbial, expect to spend a few minutes having a chat.
>>
>>>>Hamsafar
>>>>How can they, if it can't be read?
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I think you need to read the reply again.
" if in MY IN car...". Said car probably has two blue lights on its roof.
so if the MOBILE ANPR system can't read it and the Mk 1 eyeball (and maybe the other Mk 1 eyeball in the adjacent seat agrees) cannot read it then " expect to spend a few minutes chat" at best and maybe a lightening of the wallet afterwards.
I surmise that if the plate can be read but is still not to spec then that too may trigger "a chat"
>>"With the Police now more reliant on the ANPR system, any car bearing a plate that can't be read by it will probably find themselves the recepient of a £30 fine by post."
Again a Mk 1 eyeball reviewing a file of failures may well be able to deduce what the pukka number plate was and then send off an invite for £30
When will a confidential "Report distorted number plates" be introduced, similar to the "no tax" reporting line ?
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In London especially, you see top of the range newish black cars with a tendancy to display silver on black plates. It looks cool, but unless its early seventies or earlier, they are illegal. No-one seems to be interested as they can still be read perfectly. I even e-mailed the DVLA on the subject who couldn't be bothered to reply. Seeing as I gave them the registration for one of them. And he's still driving around on them.
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Scribe, please don't take offence here but you said you emailed DVLA. Can you tell me exactly what you expected to happen, lets start with the clerk whose inbox it arrived in.
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