Number plates are even more important

The recent decision to dispense with the car tax disc which had been used since 1921 to prove that the car owner had paid their vehicle excise duty, was a significant event, not just for velologists (people who collect tax discs!). There will no longer be unique evidence of the tax for a car being displayed in the windscreen, instead there will be a reliance on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras dotted around the country’s road network. The significance of this is that the number plate becomes an even more important register of a car’s identity and its legality. There are something like 45,000 number plates stolen each year and it may be that this figure will rise with the advent of the new licensing regime. There is a criminal industry based on the theft of number plates which are then used by the thieves for a variety of purposes including, to steal petrol by driving away without paying, to avoid parking or speeding fines or using the stolen plates on a getaway car during a robbery. To this sorry litany of crimes may be added the possibility of using stolen number plates to disguise the non-payment of vehicle excise duty. Fitting tamper proof screws It is unfortunate that unless something is nailed down there is someone who will remove it and there is a simple solution to the problem which would prevent the massive inconvenience to the unfortunate car owner. The easy answer, as recommended by police authorities is to fit tamper proof number plate screws to replace the existing ones. A tamperproof number plate security screw has a specially designed head, which means that it cannot be undone and the only way the number plate can be removed is by ripping the plate off, rendering it unusable. The screw can be fitted using a conventional flat blade screwdriver, but any attempt to remove the screw will result in the screwdriver slipping out due to the clutch head design. The incidence of number plate theft is not likely to decrease, particularly in view of the removal of the need to display a tax disc. The theft of a number plate creates a lot of inconvenience to the innocent owner and an easily removable number plate encourages the criminals. It would of course be a good idea to automatically fit tamper proof screws to number plates either at the point of sale of the vehicle or retro fitting at an MOT for example. There is in fact an online e-petition at http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/68647 which has been started to encourage the government to ensure that tamper proof screws are fitted to number plates. It is interesting that this is the one part of the modern car that has very little security attached to it, everything else has special locking arrangements or markings, and yet the number plate has so much importance. The number plate is now the main identifier of a car as it tells the police if it is insured, taxed or is wanted in connection with criminal activity, so it is vital that it is protected.