Stealing rego plates

[Grahameeboy]

Taken from BBC news.

I know it is easy to change ownership, however, in the UK you can just go in a shop, give them the plate details and get a perspex plate........do you think this would be a problem in NZ?


Have you been a victim of car cloning?
Thousands of drivers across Britain had their car number plates stolen or cloned last year, and many only realised when they received fines for speeding or failing to pay a congestion charge.

Stealing number plates to evade speed cameras or to drive into a congestion charging zone is one form of car cloning, but criminals also cloning number plates to sell stolen cars.

Police estimate that 40,000 number plates were stolen last year. They want the car number plate system completely overhauled and cars to be fitted with tamper proof plates.

Have you received a speeding ticket or fine even though your car was off the road? Have you been a victim of car cloning? How do you think the car registration system should be changed?

[car]

I know it is easy to change ownership, however, in the UK you can just go in a shop, give them the plate details and get a perspex plate........do you think this would be a problem in NZ?

That's not strictly true. They changed the law a couple of years back and shops claiming to sell license plates are now required to see proof of ownership of the vehicle in question before they'll make you a replacement plate.

There are still places who'll do you "show only" plates that they have to disclaim disclaim disclaim aren't legal for use on the road (the only ones I know of are mail order) and that's where bikers go for their under-sized teeny tiny plates. Why all the motor factors and highstreet car accessory shops didn't use the same loophole, I don't know.

But at least as far as my experience goes, you have to look for someone that'll make you a plate without paperwork. You can't just walk into any old shop.

All of which said, my sister got a bunch of parking tickets last year as a result of some guy at the other end of the country sticking her number (from her old white Ford Sierra) on his car (an old blue VW Golf) and parking it wherever the hell he liked. Luckily, because he wasn't smart enough to steal the plate from a matching car, all she had to do was say "duh, check the PNC for a description of my vehicle."

[car]

Have you received a speeding ticket or fine even though your car was off the road? Have you been a victim of car cloning? How do you think the car registration system should be changed?

They're just irked that the downtrodden masses have a small but significant loophole through which they might avoid New Labour's Total Surveillance System.

The solution, after pouring millions into inevitably forgeable unforgeable plates, will be to insert tagging devices into every vehicle, animal, man, woman and child in the country, so that they can be observed, controlled and re-neducated at the government's whim.

I think this is probably more depressing than the whirlwind of atomic fallout they told me I was going to inherit in the '80s, back when they were waving distractingly at some other Great Fear and making ominous hooting noises.

Pay no attention to what lies behind the curtain!