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Number Plates - Or lack of

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Number Plates - Or lack of

purf

purf

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Has anyone noticed quite a few cars recently with missing front number plates??? With the driver usually having placed it in the windscreen or something?

I saw a TV show a few months back and some kid got pulled over - ANPR for having incorrect plates. He claimed the dealer who sold it had fitted the wrong plates... Police check and he's right. However the show highlighted that if you have the wrong, damaged or missing plate you get 14 days to rectify. and NO fine?!!!

This kid hadnt even got the right plates on the car and they did nothing even as this was the second time they had puled him for the plates!!!

So basically this show highlighted a huge loophole on national TV. Drive about with removed front plate and when/if the law pulls you over - you just say its fell off this morning and there is no fine! This means avoding static ANPR, tax checks and speed cameras?

Am I wrong?
 
I guess the aesthetics may be one reason - most 'perpetrators' are driving modded cars...

It annoys me!!! Not really fair on the honest motorist!
 
uncle was running me to ECP (headgasket had went on my mk1 punto and supplied me with wrong timing belt) his rear numberplate was caked in dirt (120 mile round trip for work) blue lights get him, 3 points and £30 fine for not having the numberplate visible
 
i had driven from London to carlisle then was on my way back down the M6 to home when i got pulled by a copper on the M6 for not having a visible plate, due to the car being caked in road grime and then mud from the latter half of the journey in the lakes.

Even though the copper was an arsehole with me from the off, he let me off with cleaning it after explaining my roadtrip. the car was two tone crud and scarlet red! front plate was clear!
 
purf said:
Has anyone noticed quite a few cars recently with missing front number plates??? With the driver usually having placed it in the windscreen or something?

I saw a TV show a few months back and some kid got pulled over - ANPR for having incorrect plates. He claimed the dealer who sold it had fitted the wrong plates... Police check and he's right. However the show highlighted that if you have the wrong, damaged or missing plate you get 14 days to rectify. and NO fine?!!!

This kid hadnt even got the right plates on the car and they did nothing even as this was the second time they had puled him for the plates!!!

So basically this show highlighted a huge loophole on national TV. Drive about with removed front plate and when/if the law pulls you over - you just say its fell off this morning and there is no fine! This means avoding static ANPR, tax checks and speed cameras?

Am I wrong?
Click to expand...

That's going back some time. iirc, wasn't the kid originally told it was illegal to drive with the wrong plates but the little dipstick decided to be a pedant and point out the 14 day clause on the form?
TBH, the way he was going on at the copper, I am absolutely astounded that the copper didn't have the car towed. I believe the reason 'we' got to see this was because he didn't have the means to pay for fuel so left details (licence?) but the forecourt's ANPR had flagged up the dodgy plates and so the chase up the motorway.

Afaic, when the kid was first pulled, they should have towed the car there and then. As driver, YOU are responsible for ensuring the vehicle is ok to be on the road.
As for this business with plates in the front screen, the law should state all plates must be secured with tamper proof screws otherwise it's any excuse.
 
Missing front plates around here coincide with flooding usually, hit a puddle too fast water pressure will rip it off..cue a fishing expedition, soggy feet and putting it in the window.
 
StevenRB45 said:
Missing front plates around here coincide with flooding usually, hit a puddle too fast water pressure will rip it off..cue a fishing expedition, soggy feet and putting it in the window.
Click to expand...
Fair enough if that's the case - but then it would be obvious that the plate has just been ripped off - damaged plate plus indications on the body that the plate was ever there. In a lot of cases I have seen round here, all traces of the plate ever having been on the car are gone - indicating a deliberate removal.
 
purf said:
Has anyone noticed quite a few cars recently with missing front number plates??? With the driver usually having placed it in the windscreen or something?

I saw a TV show a few months back and some kid got pulled over - ANPR for having incorrect plates. He claimed the dealer who sold it had fitted the wrong plates... Police check and he's right. However the show highlighted that if you have the wrong, damaged or missing plate you get 14 days to rectify. and NO fine?!!!

This kid hadnt even got the right plates on the car and they did nothing even as this was the second time they had puled him for the plates!!!

So basically this show highlighted a huge loophole on national TV. Drive about with removed front plate and when/if the law pulls you over - you just say its fell off this morning and there is no fine! This means avoding static ANPR, tax checks and speed cameras?

Am I wrong?
Click to expand...

It will be a VDRS. Basically means get it fixed ASAP and prove to us (MOT station to stamp it) that its been done. If they get it done within the 14 days, nothing happens. If they don't, they get taken to court.

You can give a ticket out still though, the officer has discretion on how they deal with it. I've given tickets out (£60 fine) for no number plate, and given a VDRS out.

Sometimes its better to get them to fix it, rather than just fine them.

nikkiy9 said:
uncle was running me to ECP (headgasket had went on my mk1 punto and supplied me with wrong timing belt) his rear numberplate was caked in dirt (120 mile round trip for work) blue lights get him, 3 points and £30 fine for not having the numberplate visible
Click to expand...

Its a £60 fine for number plates failing to conform. Don't get any points for it.

Edit - Forgot to mention, if they get pulled over again after getting a VDRS, they are still committing an offence, so could get another one, or a ticket.
 
Last edited:
sludgeguts said:
Fair enough if that's the case - but then it would be obvious that the plate has just been ripped off - damaged plate plus indications on the body that the plate was ever there. In a lot of cases I have seen round here, all traces of the plate ever having been on the car are gone - indicating a deliberate removal.
Click to expand...

I'm out in the country up north....the hella flush crew don't seem to be very prevalent round here last one I saw was a starbo which while I'm sure would have been fast on a drag strip was reduced to doing 20mph attempting swerve round every pimple and bump that might make his front spoiler scrape...
 
I have always wondered this:
how does this stand.. you set off in the morning on a long motorway drive. the car clean and number plates visible. on the journey it snows and covers the front plate (that kinda snow where it would cover it again in 5 mins if you were to stop and clean it off). if you were to get pulled over for having an unreadable front number plate, where would you stand?

do you recon you would be done for something the driving conditions are doing in say real time/frequently as you are driving. over lack of car care.. dirty number plates that maybe would take the whole trip to become unreadable?

put it this way, would you stop every 5 mins on a motorway journey to clean a number plate to avoid getting a telling off?

i do wonder how petty a law enforcer could get with these laws.
 
Last edited:
Dragon Man said:
I have always wondered this:
how does this stand.. you set off in the morning on a long motorway drive. the car clean and number plates visible. on the journey it snows and covers the front plate (that kinda snow where it would cover it again in 5 mins if you were to stop and clean it off). if you were to get pulled over for having an unreadable front number plate, where would you stand?

do you recon you would be done for something the driving conditions are doing in say real time/frequently as you are driving. over lack of car care.. dirty number plates that maybe would take the whole trip to become unreadable?

put it this way, would you stop every 5 mins on a motorway journey to clean a number plate to avoid getting a telling off?

i do wonder how petty a law enforcer could get with these laws.
Click to expand...
If the snow was as bad as that, I would like to think that the officer would have more important things to worry about on a motorway in blizzard conditions, but I suppose that depends on the individual and if they have any common sense or not.
 
dont quite know if this fits on this thread but i drove a secondhand car for a whole year between mots with different number plate on the front to the back it was only one digit out for example abc123 on front and abc132 on the back.... i never even noticed ... i expect theres a fine for that also infact theres bound to be.
 
Zanzari said:
dont quite know if this fits on this thread but i drove a secondhand car for a whole year between mots with different number plate on the front to the back it was only one digit out for example abc123 on front and abc132 on the back.... i never even noticed ... i expect theres a fine for that also infact theres bound to be.
Click to expand...

A work friend had the same on a 2nd hand car from a Ford dealer. Was only 3 years later when caught speeding it was noticed. No fine as was obviously the supplying Ford dealers fault. Needless to say she went back they and they rectified it FOC.
 
Most Easterly Pandas said:
A work friend had the same on a 2nd hand car from a Ford dealer. Was only 3 years later when caught speeding it was noticed. No fine as was obviously the supplying Ford dealers fault. Needless to say she went back they and they rectified it FOC.
Click to expand...
Three years!!
I must be unusual. I always look at the reg plate as I approach the car in a car park, either from the front or the rear. This probably stems from when I once tried to get in an identical car to mine parked very close to mine in a multi storey. Very embarrassing!
 
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