Motorists are being warned that the police will be clamping down on vehicle number plates that do not conform with the new number plate rules.

Drivers who are caught driving a vehicle that has number plates that have been altered or simply has a font that is wrong will be pulled over and fined.

The basic rules for number plates in the UK are:

The background surface should be reflex-reflecting

Number plates should meet the British Standard

All number plates made after August 31, 2001 must display the mandatory font, with those made prior to this substantially the same.

The law states that you must not alter, rearrange or misrepresent the letters or numbers and characters must not be moved from one group to the other (e.g. E424 SNT must not be displayed as E424S NT).

This means:

No stylised letters

Don’t move the space around

Don’t misrepresent letters or numbers using screws or fixings

Don’t misrepresent letters or numbers using squashed or distorted letters

No images other than the approved flags

These rule changes after police forces across the country that have involved illegal number plates, motorists are also being warned that on some occasions the Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) could revoke the number plate.

Acting Sergeant Phil Smith said: “It is important that when Suffolk Constabulary and our partners in the Suffolk Roadsafe group are carrying out our function of reducing casualties, we are not hindered when using devices such as speed cameras and Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR).

“It is also important that witnesses are able to accurately read number plates of vehicles involved in crime.”

The number plate rules are being strictly looked at by the authorities as it deemed to have got out of hand because of the amount of people that have non-compliant number plates. Any driver who receives two penalty notices will be reported to the DVLA, it is then when they will consider revoking the number plate.

Source [Lowestoft Journal]