Registration Numbers Club

Keeping Within the Law

The Registration Numbers Club (RNC) fully supports this magazine’s policy not to condone the alteration of vehicle number plates in any way. The DVLA, quite rightly, issues rules covered in The Road Vehicles (Display of Registration Marks) Regulations 2001, which govern the way number plates must be displayed. The size, colour and spacing of letters and numbers and the typeface used must conform to these standards. The plate must also show the manufacturers name and postcode and the British Standard number it is made to. Drivers can be taken to court, fined up to £1000 and the vehicle can fail an MOT test for any deviation from that allowed. The ultimate sanction is that the registration can be withdrawn by the Secretary of State, with the owner unable to claim any compensation other than the return of the assignment fee.

But the RNC has learned that despite receiving more than 16,000 reports of number plate altering in the past nine years the DVLA has withdrawn only 22 registrations.

The police can and do stop drivers for this offence. Each time they do it is reported to the agency which has the power to remove it from the national database rendering it illegal for the vehicle to be used on the road under that registration and, therefore, subject to further stops. In reality most cases result in a warning letter being sent to the registered keeper. It appears, however, that most just ignore the letter and carry on using the altered plate.

As the DVLA has raised significant sums of money for the Treasury since it started selling registrations in 1989, it appears reluctant to take offenders to court as this could affect its profits. And, according to the Mail on Sunday using figures from a Freedom of Information request, almost 700 drivers completely ignored the first warning letter. A spokesman for the DVLA though claimed that most offenders corrected their number plates following the initial warning.

Of course certain registrations sold by the DVLA can easily be altered to spell a word or name and because of this their value is greater than if they were, say, just initials. The Agency does state, however, that you should not buy or bid for a registration if it is your intention to misrepresent it. You have been warned.

Take care when parking

The DVLA has come under fire again with claims that it is still selling names and addresses of motorists to wheel-clamping and parking companies without carrying out detailed checks on their credentials. Companies who have a legitimate right to such information can request it via a secure data link to the DVLA database and it costs just £2.50 a time.

But, according to a report in the same newspaper, some companies are applying for the details individually by post and apparently are not obliged to undergo the same security checks that on-line operators have to. All they have to do is download a form from the internet, add the vehicle registration number and type and say why they want the information and what it will be used for. There are no checks involved such as criminal records, documentation or company credentials.

Apparently out of almost 335,000 enquiries requested in the past year around 20% were made by post with only 1 in a 1000 being rejected due to the applicant not having reasonable cause to obtain the information.

Critics claim the system is open to widespread abuse and are asking the Information Commissioner to intervene.

The DVLA says it has received an income of around £15m in the last five years selling names and addresses but that this really only covers its costs. It also says that it has to strike a happy medium between protecting the motorist and allowing fair enforcement for land owners, but following the newspaper campaign, the Agency says it has now launched a new investigation.
In 2005 the Government ordered an enquiry after it was revealed criminals were involved in a parking scam in Portsmouth where drivers were deliberately blocked in with a van. The men, who were eventually convicted of extortion and given prison sentences, demanded a fee of £300 to release clamped cars.

Rally 2009

The Registration Numbers Club’s annual rally will take place this year on Sunday 5 July 2009 at the Yorkshire Air Museum, Elvington, York. There will be a members dinner the previous evening at the York Pavilion Hotel just a short drive from the rally site.

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