Personalised Number Plate Information

NUMBER PLATES:

The state Department of Motor Vehicles has suspended the vehicle registrations of more than 4,900 motorists who crossed New York bridges and tunnels without paying tolls, officials told The Post.

Most of the scofflaws have breezed through new cashless tollbooths — and then ignored repeated bills sent by mail.

But the crackdown has some drivers fuming, with one, Jon Kopel, calling it “Governor Cuomo’s legalized extortion.”

Kopel recently moved from Yonkers to upstate South Fallsburg, and says he never received initial bills for crossing the Tappan Zee and other bridges. He finally received a mailed warning that the DMV would yank his car registration if he didn’t pay $960 for 18 tolls plus violation fees, he said.

Kopel says that when he called the bill collectors, they told him, “We’re going to give you a break — we’ll make it $400 if you pay it now” — so he charged it on his credit card.

“That’s some deal, isn’t it?” he griped.

Tolling agencies now have sharper teeth. Under state regulations that went into effect in January, the DMV can suspend registrations of car owners who refuse to pay the tolls and steep late fees.

“By the time the DMV is done with them, I think they’ll find out the state of New York is not kidding around here,” MTA board member Mitchell Pally told The Post.

“Sooner or later we’re going to get your money or your registration, so you might as well pay.”

To date, the DMV has received 8,262 requests for suspensions from tolling authorities and approved 4,976. Of those, 556 suspensions were sought by the MTA; 499 by the Port Authority, and 3,921 by the Thruway Authority.

The MTA so far has converted seven of its nine city crossings to cashless, with the Throgs Neck and Bronx-Whitestone bridges due in the fall.

The PA’s new Bayonne Bridge and the Thruway Authority’s Tappan Zee Bridge are also cashless.

That means cars and trucks can whiz through without stopping, which saves time for motorists and improves traffic flow.

Vehicles with E-ZPass are charged as usual, but for those without, cameras on overhead gantries photograph license plates. A contractor for the three tolling authorities mails bills to the registered owners, who are responsible for payment no matter who was driving.

Vehicle owners who ignore two bills in a row are hit with penalty fees of $50 or $100. At the Henry Hudson, one-third of motorists without E-ZPass were scofflaws.

Under the new state regulation, the DMV can suspend the registration of motorists who fail to pay three or more toll violations within five years, or for commercial vehicles fail to pay $200 in tolls within five years.

Out-of-state drivers who cross New York bridges and tunnels without paying may soon face the same fate — the DMV is seeking suspension agreements with other agencies.

“If your car is registered in Connecticut, the DMV would take into account what you did in New York,” Pally said.

A BIKER has been caught by police using a James Bond-inspired gadget to conceal his number plate to avoid speed cameras.

Spanish traffic cops pulled over the motorcyclist after they noticed he was riding without a licence plate.

However, on closer inspection, the modified plate was revealed with tech straight from 007’s garage.

The Swiss rider had the ability to flip up his number plate at the press of a button to hide the reg from police or cameras.

A similar gadget was famously seen on Sean Connery’s Aston Martin DB5 in Goldfinger.

Bond’s number plate could spin to change to a different number to avoid being followed or tracked.

This rider didn’t quite have the same knack for getting out of trouble as 007, though.

As according to a report on the Catalan police website, using the secret gadget led to the motorcyclist’s downfall after cops in Girona noticed the rider didn’t have a licence plate.

They pursued and pulled over the motorcyclist before noticing the number plate had bizarrely re-appeared.

After a quick search, officers found the activation switch to move the plate up and down to dodge speed cameras.

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As well as having an internet presence, we also regularly advertise in many of the 'National' publications where we offer a selection of registrations owned by us for sale.

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A private firm engaged by the Delhi government in 2012 to manufacture high security numberplates for city vehicles has been fined by the Delhi high court for "forum hunting."
HC on Thursday slapped a cost of Rs 50,000 on Rosemerta HSRP Ventures for trying to secure a favourable order from a different bench since the earlier judge had ruled against it.

"This court is also of the prima facie view that the present petition lacks bonafides; any clarification as to the order passed by this court on October 7, 2016 ought to have been obtained by filing an application in the disposed of appeal. However, it appears that the endeavour of Rosmerta was to avoid approaching the bench concerned by way of a clarification and it does appear that this is a case of forum hunting," Justice Vibhu Bakhru observed while imposing punitive costs.

Last year, a bench of Justice S Muralidhar had lifted a stay on Delhi government's transport department to go ahead with its termination of agreement with Rosmerta, even as it had clarified that the firm should be granted a hearing first by an authority higher than the transport commissioner who first took the decision to terminate its services.

However, Rosmerta came to court again claiming that Delhi government has asked it to appear before the chief secretary though it is the lieutenant governor who should hear its appeal, a contention rejected not just by the LG but also by Justice Bakhru.

Last year, SC had also paved the way for AAP government to end its contract with the controversial private firm that manufactures high security numberplates in Delhi.
Delhi government and Rosmerta have been locked in arbitration since 2014 after the government issued a show-cause notice to the firm, accusing it of several violations and irregularities in the execution of the high security numberplate project. This led the company to invoke an in-built arbitration clause in the agreement.

HC held that even as per the NCT Act and Rules, the chief secretary would be the secretary to the council of ministers and principal secretary, general administration department will be the joint secretary to the council.

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2010 Car Number Plates

We're now just over a month away from the introduction of the 2010 number plate on all new cars hitting the road after the beginning of March.

While the excitement surrounding the introduction of new number plates may go over some people's heads, during the past few years a real demand has grown for personalised plates, with some selling for an absolute fortune at auction.

Music legend Elton John's former number plate ELT 70N recently went up for auction for just under £1,000, but that's nothing compared to the £113,815 one crazy person (in the nicest sense) shelled out on a 1 HRH number plate auctioned by the DVLA at the beginning of 2009. And even that has some way to go to surpass £254,000 paid to take ownership of the 51 NGH plate.

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Record numbers of motorists are driving cars fitted with personalised numberplates amid a surge in “auto vanity”.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency sold a record 374,968 registrations last year, up 12 per cent in 12 months and almost five times the total in the mid-90s.

The trade in numberplates made more than £110 million for the Treasury in 2016-17 alone, a record annual total.

The rise coincides with an increase in the number of registrations made available by the DVLA, combined with a sharp rise in the value of rare plates over the past two decades.

In an era when we’re all supposed to be flaunting our individuality, the trend for personalised car number plates has apparently never been higher. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA), which sells new and never-issued registrations, sold 374,968 last year, an increase of 12%.

Among private dealers, who sell pre-owned plates, business is just as good.

“For the past five years, [the market has] been steadily rising.” It is thought one reason is a personalised plate makes the age of the car less obvious. But he also says social media has played a huge part. “It’s, ‘Hey, everybody, look at me’,” he says.

People post pictures of their new cars on Instagram, and adding a private plate “seems to be something that people can use to boost their social media reach”.

At the entry-level end of the market, “registrations that start at £250, on average there are 800 of those sold every day.” He says one fairly common customer is the parent who buys a personalised plate for their child on passing their driving test, to go with a new car. “My typical client would be someone in their 40s or 50s, they’ve got a bit of money sitting about and always fancied a personalised number plate.”

At the extreme end, plates can fetch more than £500,000. In 2014, one classic-car dealer bought a “25 O” plate, reportedly for his Ferrari 250 GTO, for £400,000 (the final price, including fees, was £518,000) and a “250 L” for £130,000.

“The numbers that were selling for £1,000 in 1980 now sell for £150,000. What probably changed it was in the late 80s, when the government started to sell numberplates. We in the trade all thought it would devalue the numbers, but it didn’t, it just got more people interested.”

A personalised plate is “a prestigious thing. There’s a little bit of vanity about it,” says Saperia. As for those of us who believe it’s the mark of a bit of a berk, Saperia points out that the DVLA’s sale of personalised plates “bring more than £100m every year to the treasury”.

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It should be noted that there are no restrictions on using a vanity or cherished registration on a car that is newer than the original date of the registration plate, but it is prohibited to transfer a registration that is newer than the vehicle it is used on. This is to prevent the transfer of newer registrations to older vehicles as a measure to protect consumers.

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T’S happened again – and set a record: Someone paid $745,000 for the numerical NSW plate ‘29’, eclipsing the previous auction record of $689,000 paid for NSW ‘2’ back in 2003.

It also set an Australian auction record for a double-digit number plate, topping the $530,000 paid for the Victorian plate ‘21’ at Shannons Melbourne Winter Auction last July.

Other strong number plate sales were $82,000 paid for NSW ‘9191’ and $35,000 for NSW ‘85758’, taking total sales on the night for the six heritage plates on offer to $956,000.

Classic motorcycles were also hot property, topped by $37,000 paid for an ‘as new’ 1975 Norton Commando Mk3 850cc with just 29km delivery on its odometer, and a 1950s Austin J40 pedal car sold for $9300.

Other impressive results from the auction included a restored 1964 Porsche 356C Coupe which went for $137,000, a restored 1949 48-215 ‘FX’ Holden which commanded $46,000, a 1962 MGA 1600 sports car fetched $52,000 and a stately and exceptionally low mileage Mercedes-Benz 300B ‘Adenauer’ limousine first owned by the Victa lawnmower family sold for $50,000.

As well, a superbly-restored 1970 Ford XY Falcon GT sedan sold for $180,000.

Other News:

A shortage of vehicle number plates has hit the Kenyan market, causing a backlog in the clearance of cars at Mombasa port.

The National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) attributed the shortage that started two weeks ago to increased registration of cars that has outpaced supply of number plates.

“Demand is far much higher than supply. There are just too many vehicles being imported into the country, especially second-hand cars,” NTSA director of registration and licensing.

She added that the supply issue will ease after Kamiti Maximum Security Prison, where the number plates are manually made, increases supply.
The law mandates the prisons department to make the plates.

Official data shows that Kenyans bought 15,858 used vehicles in the first quarter of the year, compared to 14,346 units in a similar period of last year, representing a 10.5 per cent growth.

It is mandatory for imported second hand vehicles to be fitted with number plates before leaving the port.

The country imports about 6,000 second hand cars monthly, according to dealers.
Dealers said that the shortage had hit them hard as they were forced to incur storage charges at the port amid cash flow hiccups due to delays as some had taken loans.

“We are incurring heavy storage charges as the cars are detained at the port despite having paid duty and customs clearance cash in advance,” said Charles Munyori, the secretary-general of Kenya Auto Bazaar Association, a lobby for second hand car dealers.

The storage charges are based on the volume of vehicles and the number of days they take at the Mombasa port or at container freight stations.

Industry insiders, however, said the number plate problem normally occurs every time a new registration number comes up as importers delay registration to take advantage of the newest numbers.

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The three-letter scheme preserved the area letter codes as the second pair of letters in the set of three, and the single letter area codes were deleted (since prefixing a single letter code would create a duplicate of a two-letter code). In some areas, the available numbers with this scheme started to run out in the 1950s, and in those areas, a reversed sequence was introduced, i.e. 1 AAA to 999 YYY. The ever-increasing popularity of the car can be gauged by noting that these sequences ran out within ten years, and by the beginning of the 1960s, a further change was made in very popular areas, introducing 4-number sequences with the one and two letter area codes, but in the reverse direction to the early scheme (i.e. 1 A to 9999 YY). Often number plates were on hinges, as petrol tank caps were located under the number plates on some cars.

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