It is amazing how many cars you’ll see out on the road that clearly are breaking the law. By this, I’m referring to their lack of displaying number plates. What is stranger is that these rules are set out by law. It’s probably worth going over the rules here, for new drivers and those seeking to modify their car in any way which may have an impact on their number plate:
A number plate must be displayed at the front and rear of motor vehicles (with some exceptions).
Number plates must be easy to read and meet the British Standard.
Lettering should be black on a white plate at the front and a yellow at the rear.
The background surface should be reflex-reflecting but the characters must not.
There are separate requirements for traditional number plates displayed on vehicles constructed before 1 January 1973.
Lettering and spacing must be of a set size.
Read more about the legal requirements of number plates
Of course, that isn’t to say that you can’t have a personalised plate (that meets British Standards). You can find the DVLA Personalised Registrations page here.
martin says
January 21, 2009 at 12:17 pmI’d hurry if I was you Mr Butterscotch. Just been onto the DVLA website abd up for sale is:
BL06CAR just “write” (sorry!) ideal for someone with their own car blog site and a snip at £685.
My finders fee is very reasonable
cool bananas
Martin
Mr Butterscotch says
January 21, 2009 at 7:18 pmHi Martin,
Thanks for the tip. I haven’t yet gone in for a private plate myself – I’m waiting till I have the right car to go with it. I’m thinking a lovely BMW M3 – then I’ll be sure to look out for a similar plate, if not the one above!
numberplates says
February 4, 2009 at 12:49 pmWhat amazes me is the way many people blatantly manipulate and distort the letters on the number plate to create a word or name. I’ve seen so many bits of tape and screws that it’s nigh on impossible to work out what the original plate was.
Seriously not cool.
Sell Number Plate says
January 19, 2010 at 7:52 pmI have to say I haven’t seen many cars out and about not displaying number plates at all, but I’ve seen plenty that have been tamped with as mentioned above. I’ve also seen many number plates with silly fonts like comic sans which are totally unreadable from any sort of distance, again not cool!
car number plates says
June 11, 2010 at 2:41 pmThere are loads of car number plates that don’t conform to British standards it’s the Police and MOT testing stations that are supposed to enforce the legislation for the DVLA.
I think they look a bit naff myself when the car number plates are manipulated with screws and such like, why not get the real registration number ?
private number plates says
June 14, 2010 at 12:14 pmThese days so many people want a private number plate. Gone are the days when it was the reserve of the very rich! But lack of budget means people have to be a biut more ‘imaginative’… and that’s why the number plates are manipulated so much. I’ve seen some awful ones. Which gives the whole ownership of personalised number plates a bad image.
And now many of those who do have the budget to buy the good ones decide not to have a private number plate because they don’t want to be associated with it!
Private Number Plates says
December 1, 2010 at 10:32 amThe issue with non legal number plates is that the cameras which read the plates cannot handle mis-represented number plates. This could be construed as attempting to pervert the course of justice given that so many offences are now detected by cameras.
Number Plate Supplier says
May 12, 2011 at 6:39 pmI think on the whole it does help if you have a good number plate specialist you can call on for help. They will answer any questions you have; on the whole the DVLA will never sympathise with you so it is of great importance to comply with the law!
James says
June 9, 2011 at 11:53 pmI have noticed a lot of car owners (VW, Audi, BMW) driving round with mock German plates. They are displaying their GB car registration number on a set of metal plates with the ‘D’ country identifier and using the standard German font. Surely these do not comply with the DVLA rules on correctly displaying (http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/PersonalisedRegAndNumberPlates/DG_181503)
show plates says
June 17, 2011 at 10:36 ami would say the fake german plates are more likely to see the driver pulled over by the police…