Registration Numbers Club

Your car and numberplate might well be your downfall

ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recording) equipment has been around for a little while now and regularly specialists from the DVLA, Customs and Excise, the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA), immigration, the DSS and local authority licensing officers join police in crackdowns throughout the country.

The ANPR equipment instantly detects if a vehicle is taxed, insured or could be stolen. In three separate Lancashire operations more than 11,000 readings were taken of which nearly 190 sent alarm bells ringing. Almost a third were untaxed vehicles and were either seized or their drivers payed the £200.00 release fee to stop it being impounded and subsequently crushed.

There were several other offences exposed ... no insurance or driving licence, failing to ensure the vehicle conformed to established laws, having dangerous parts etc. and some of these warranted £30.00 fixed penalty fines.

The crackdown uncovered two people who were arrested for outstanding court warrants, a failed asylum seeker who was driving illegally and has since been deported, two thieves and a motorist with no tax, insurance or driving licence! Some drivers were also issued with corrective 10 day notices for having tinted front windows which were too dark.

One police officer said: ‘If you have something to hide or are cheating the law, the car you are driving is now your downfall. The ANPR system reveals all and wrongdoers will be discovered. Many vehicles were stopped because they had customised their number plates using either italic letters or by changing the letter spacing. This is illegal as modifications like this make number plates difficult to read correctly and could prevent us from finding a vehicle if it was ever stolen. We will continue to challenge illegal motorists until they start to drive by the law.’

A further stage in tracking motorists is number plates embedded with a microchip containing vehicle information. This is transmitted to roadside readers and can be picked up at any speed and up to 100 metres away. This scheme is reckoned to be an improvement over camera systems which are only 75 to 90 percent accurate. Trials of the new plates could be starting soon and a DfT spokesman said they wished to check if the new plates were harder to copy following a growing trend by commuters doing this to avoid congestion charges or fines. Civil liberties groups say that such systems are likely to become a ‘back door surveillance tool.’

As a result of stricter controls on number plate suppliers thefts of plates are on the increase by criminals who clone them, saddling innocent motorists with fines and speeding accusations. Over 14,000 plate thefts were reported last year ... so make sure yours are fixed well!