Personlised number plates

[Playbill]

Do these number plates register on automatic number plate cameras: Congestion Charge, Gatso, etc?

I am not just talking about the oddly spaced type, but the ones in strange fonts that are difficult to read even when the vehicle is stationary.

[Grunty]

Apparenly not. An announcement was made 2 or 3 years ago that the police would crack down on non-standard plates for that very reason. The government went into one of the familiar modes in the face of a problem - they promised to bring out a law defining the fonts to be used, even though such a law had been in existence for many years. There is one remedy in that non-standard plates are a reason for MOT failure. Of course a further complication is that the DVLA has been selling personalised plates, some of which rely on incorrect spacing etc.

[198x]

Any other font other than the standard license plate font is illegal on a car on the road.

The police can actually issue a fine and/or warning and tell you to change the license plate back to the original if it's in another font.

[Cappuccino]

Only for plates made after September 2001.

[Skids]

The only difference bewteen pre and post September 2001 number plates is the dimensions of lines and spaces. Post Sept 01 must have the mandatory font, pre Sept 01 must have a font substantially the same as the current mandatory font. This means that hard to read number plates, such as squirly fonts or italics, are illegal regardless of when they were made.

[Playbill]

So, if these plates are not recognised by cameras and are illegal, I would have thought it was one of the easiest things for the police to notice. But it seems that this does not happen as I have seen the same cars using them for months, if not years with impunity.

Perhaps it is not a coincidence that they are also usually speeding or badly driven as the cameras or the police cannot spot them, so they do not care how they drive.

[=rizla=]

It used to be a �20 fine for having an incorrect number plate on your car, and if i remember correctly this included haveing a wrong letter or two, of course it's probably easy to prove you were trying to pervert the course of justice by doing so and you would be liable to a more hefty fine.

[JudgeJ]

We should not get too bogged down in semantics here. However, it is worth mentioning that you would not be liable for prosecution for attempting to pervert the course of justice in the circumstances described. It is no more likely than in the case of a burglar running away from the police to avoid capture.

Perverting the course of justice is only possible after the process of prosecution has begun, and usually involves interfering with witnesses, or evidence, or jury �nobbling�.

[=rizla=]

Surely there must be something the police could do apart from the �20 fine ( if i'm right on that), to stop you getting a new numberplate from a breakers yard and never paying the congestion charge/gatso fines etc again!!