As per the title got myself some pressed metal plates ordered from Elite Car Care and frames off flea bay.. Since stoneacre managed to put them on no where near straight and they had started to let water and dirt in between the laminate and the perspex...


Plates are legal (had to send docs to elite) come with the makers name and post code and bs au number.....

well i'll let the pics do the talking...

How did you get round to ordering them? I've been on there website and I cant see any thing to do with pressed number plates? Did you phone them?

http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=173997

Have you waxed them?

(And the frame could do with a quick polish).

Any pics of the front?

Will get some pics up when I'm back at home I'm away from computer till Sunday

Remembered I uploaded these.... http://www.detailingworld.co.uk/forum/showpost.php?p=3403570&postcount=134

Andy Monty said:

Plates are legal

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As the plates were fitted after 1st September 2001 they are not legal.

The Road Vehicles (Display of Registration Marks) Regulations 2001, Schedule 2, Part One (1) states that the plate must be made of retroreflecting material.

Steel is not retroreflecting. Spraying it with reflecting paint is not good enough. Most of the plates are OK for a while then the paint dulls and they come up on ANPR as illegal because they don't reflect enough.


http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2001/561/pdfs/uksi_20010561_en.pdf

So how can they cary the bsau145 code john?

Acrylic is not inherently retroreflective either, I suspect that - rather than a spray - there is a film of reflective material on the steel, the letters are then pressed and painted over this. I've not actually looked at them in the flesh though so am only guessing.

That's correct fraz from looking at them it is a film I want to stay within the law. My old plates had deteriorateed round the screw holes when water and dirt got in hence i replaced them

You would need to ask whoever put the bsau code on where they get their authority from.

While you are doing that you might like to ask them why they say (in the thread you linked to) that they are happy with scanned copies of documents when the law is clear that only originals can be used. You could also ask why they will post to an address which is different from the one on the V5. The legal requirement to use the registered address when supplying by post is to prevent cloning.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives....cle/PersonalisedRegAndNumberPlates/DG_4022573

Eklipze3k said:

Acrylic is not inherently retroreflective

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As I understand it ( from an explanation given in court during an illegal plates case) the base material from which legal plates are made consists of some kind of acrylic containing a substance which makes it retroreflective. That was said to be legal while anything that relies on a surface coating is not.

So the cheaper plates made from sandwiched layers of material (which I see on at least 80% of vehicles as they get crinkly with water ingress) are also illegal? Whilst I respect your no-nonsense approach john, there are more important things to be concerned with. As long as the plate is readable by ANPR, no-one is going to say anything.

The acrylic is not reflective john it is transparent a thin face adhesive film of reflective film usually 3m or nicoli is first printed with the vrm. Then placed on a jig the clear acrylic is then dropped on top then pressed with a mangle to remove bubbles

Nb I do value your input john

Eklipze3k said:

So the cheaper plates made from sandwiched layers of material (which I see on at least 80% of vehicles as they get crinkly with water ingress) are also illegal? Whilst I respect your no-nonsense approach john, there are more important things to be concerned with. As long as the plate is readable by ANPR, no-one is going to say anything.

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The cheaper plates you refer to may be legal.

For plates fitted after sept 2001 the requirement is that they are retroreflective. For plates fitted between 1973 and 2001 they have to be reflex reflective. The terms were spelt out clearly in the cases I mentioned as were the relevant parts of BS AU 145a. I didn't keep my notes and my memory of the technical bits is not good enough for me to explain those terms fully now.

If I remember correctly retroreflective means that light is returned parallell and reflex reflective means that light is returned but not parallell and therefore not such a high level of reflection. That may well be wrong.

The cases I dealt with were from a car club meeting, one with pressed plates triggered the ANPR as unreadable and that led to the police nicking a few more on the grounds of illegal construction. There are no points attached and only a small fine so some may be prepared to take the risk.

Andy Monty said:

Nb I do value your input john

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The problem with posting as a magistrate is that some people find it useful to have an informed source for answers - even when they are not the answers they wanted - and others take every opportunity to be offensive. I gave up posting here a while ago because I got fed up with replies that were not only wrong in law but offensively phrased personal attacks.

I have made an exception and responded to this thread as a one off partly because I know you to be capable of disagreeing politely and partly because I am off work sick and got lots of spare time.


Enjoy the plates but think about the fact that the people who told you they are legal have admitted accepting copies of documents and posting plates to an address other that that at which the vehicle is registered. Both of which are forbidden in law.

Now where is the mod option to turn off the swearand abuse filter

Hope you have a speedy recovery john and can soon be back with your gavel and wig :wave:

Now im at a laptop with a proper keyboard and not one of those minute postage stamp touch screen "smart phones" which require the fingers of a 5 year old to avoid mashing the wrong key and taking 45 mins to upload via the poor mobile phone signal at work GPRS mobile internet in this day and age :bang:

I tried my hardest to do my homework before ordering..
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/PersonalisedRegAndNumberPlates/DG_181503

http://www.dft.gov.uk/dvla/vehicles...te+car+care&posttown=&postcode=&page=0&ext=dg



Just to lay some back ground the original dealership supplied plates weren't too clever either they had shoved the upper margin to under the 11mm cut off so they could fit their "snazzy" company logo at the bottom of the plate


that 10.6mm reading is right to the edge of the chamfer rather than the flat of the plate which is closer to 10mm which i realised was not overly clever

And the YTS mechanic at the dealers had put them on the car on the wonk and rammed the drill through the hole with force and blown the laminate off the back and over the past year the screws had begun to rust coupled with the muck and wet of my regular back road commute had began to alter the appearance of the lettering, So rather than go via the do it again in 12 months time i started looking about for an alternative and came across the plates i ordered from Elite.. (which incidentally were delivered to the registered address )


Anywho I placed my order and they arrived.... and i posted my thread on here


I had done as much homework as i could prior to ordering

You mention the reflectivity as the sticking point due to your past case / knowledge of a case. What plates were these were they the standard VW/ Audi sporting German style plates?

I have a look on the producers website (not who i ordered from but the supplier of the blanks (they also make plates) a company trading as EUROPL8

http://www.europl8.net/


to quote their website

We are pleased to announce, our UK spec 3D Embossed License Plates have passed the relevant BSAU 145d testing and are 100% legal for use on the public highway. All legal plates will have a BSAU 145d mark and the sellers mark laser etched onto them.

From 1st November 2008 it is against the law to supply show plates to UK customers which contain a UK registration number. So we have withdrawn this option.

Europl8's online plate ordering facility is now only available to registered trade suppliers, who can be located via the Find Supplier link. Additionally plates may be ordered directly from Europl8 as per the Order By Post section, subject to the supply of certain legally required documents.

All plates carry a 12 month guarantee.

Click to expand...

Sadly i cant really afford the £96 to pay HMSO for a copy of this

http://shop.bsigroup.com/ProductDetail/?pid=000000000030056618

johnw said:

The cheaper plates you refer to may be legal.

For plates fitted after sept 2001 the requirement is that they are retroreflective. For plates fitted between 1973 and 2001 they have to be reflex reflective. The terms were spelt out clearly in the cases I mentioned as were the relevant parts of BS AU 145a. I didn't keep my notes and my memory of the technical bits is not good enough for me to explain those terms fully now.

If I remember correctly retroreflective means that light is returned parallell and reflex reflective means that light is returned but not parallell and therefore not such a high level of reflection. That may well be wrong.

Click to expand...

just done some more homework John (always was a teacher pet)

there are 4 approvals for number plates based on the BSI website information

BS AU 145 A (1972)
which covers Reflex reflective

http://shop.bsigroup.com/ProductDetail/?pid=000000000000071681




BS AU 145 B (1989)

http://shop.bsigroup.com/ProductDetail/?pid=000000000000413711

BS AU 145 C (1995)

http://shop.bsigroup.com/ProductDetail/?pid=000000000000588678

then the current regs


BS AU 145 d (1998)


http://shop.bsigroup.com/en/ProductDetail/?pid=000000000030056618

which my plates are marked in compliance to





So after reading all that im at a total loss to what makes them illegal


in short:

they are constructed of from a retro reflective material (aluminium pre treated with a surface treatment/ coating) which complies with BSAU145d

of the correct size and margin

the type face is correct (sans serif) and spaced and sized correctly

The font can be 3D

the plate shows the makers name and postcode and manufacturers name


im confused

How does the magistrate thing work in cases like this on one side you will have a traffic officer who stopped the pesky driver and on the other you have the driver arguing his corner...... You will obviously done your homework pre "trial" with info supplied via the cps/ copper/ defence and looked up the relevant laws

The copper says number plate is illegal Defendent says no its not i have these print outs from the DVLA/ HMSO and the number plate here with me.....

and explain what i have typed above in the past 2 post? would they send the plates away for testing to prove they didnt meet the Bsau145d regs? (from what i have seen this evening only the British standard institution can carry out the tests) or would the simple fact you got a well reasoned argument with reference to the regs bring the old England innocent till proven guilty "ruling" into the case?