The Wrong Way to Display Numberplates...

The authorities claim that the clear display of car number plates is a vital tool in the fight against crime, but in a recent case a mis-spaced personal registration made the police's job a lot easier.

The car used by a gang of incompetent bank robbers in Cardiff bore the driver's own private number plate J4 MES ('James'). Witnesses remembered the exclusive number from the car they had seen parked outside the Halifax branch where the robbery took place, and police were able to track down the four hapless thieves as a result.

The Crown Court in Cardiff imposed sentences ranging from eight to twelve years upon hapless offenders and the police thanked those people who contacted them with details of the number plate.

It is interesting to note that the characters on the poorly disguised getaway car were displayed without the prescribed space between the 'J4' and the 'MES'. There have been numerous cases of over-zealous officials penalising motorists for perpetuating the self same offence in order to emphasise a vague representation of a word.

The fact that, in this instance, the action only served to make the recall and identification of the registration easier, surely proves the nonsense of the DVLA's pedantry.

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