DVLA Rules For Number Plates And Their Spacing

Drivers have been warned that they can be stripped of their car’s number plate if they break the law.

Devon and Cornwall Police revealed the circumstances in which plates can be seized as they revealed how many motorists had been stopped for having dodgy plates.

The force said three drivers a week were stopped, on average, in the last 12 months for having illegal plates.

So-called “non conforming” number plates include those that have been mis-spaced and those with italics.

In response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act, a Devon and Cornwall Police spokesman said: “The force will also contact DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) in cases where the number plate has been mis-spaced.

“Purchasers of the registration mark do not own the plate, they own the right to place it on their vehicle, subject to conditions. Mis-spacing is one of them.

“On receipt of two reports of the same mark being mis-spaced they will remove it from the owner, who may have paid several thousand pounds for it. Often the illegal number plates are purchased on the internet and specified not for road use.”

On its website the DVLA also warned that you could be fined up to £1,000, and that your car “will fail its MOT test if you drive with incorrectly displayed number plates”.

THESE ARE THE DVLA’S RULES
For vehicles with new or replacement number plates fitted from 1 September 2001, registration numbers can no longer be shown over three lines (unless the vehicle was first registered before 1 January 1973) or if a vehicle is constructed before 1 January 1976 and is registered in the historic tax class and is exempt from vehicle tax.

Also, the letters and numbers (characters) on number plates bought since 1 September 2001 will need to meet the following standards.

Characters must be 79mm tall

Characters (except the number 1 or letter I) must be 50mm wide

The character stroke (the thickness of the black print) must be 14mm

The space between characters must be 11mm

The space between the age identifier and the random letters must be 33mm

The margins at the top, bottom and side of the plate must be 11mm

Vertical space between the age identifier and the random numbers must be 19mm

So what are the top selling number plates in the UK? The DVLA has been selling private plates to UK motorists since 1989. During this time, there have been a number of records set, but most of the top 10 have been bought in the past 15 years. Here’s what currently makes the list:

25 0 – A Ferrari dealer bought this for £518k in 2014. It is now on a £10 million Ferrari 250 SWB.
F 1 – A businessman, Afzal Khan, bought this for £440k in 2008 and put it on his McLaren-Mercedes SLR.
S 1 – This was bought in 2008 for £404k by an anonymous buyer.
1 D – Businessman Nabil Bishara bought this plate in 2009 (before One Direction was formed, so it is not a reference to the band) for £352k.
M 1 – Businessman Mike McCoomb bought this number plate in 2006 for £331k, apparently for his son, who was 10 at the time.
VIP 1 – Chelsea owner and businessman Roman Abramovich bought this plate for £285k in 2006.
51 NGH – This number plate, which looks like the surname Singh, was sold in 2006 for £254k.
1 RH – Businessman Robert Haverson bought this in 2006 for £247k.
K1 NGS – This reg plate, which looks like the word “kings”, was bought anonymously in 1993 for £231k.
1 0 – This very simple but striking number plate was bought anonymously in 2009 for £170k.

These are large amounts of money, but they are all small compared to the top-selling number plates found in other parts of the world. Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, has the record for the most expensive number plate ever sold. That number plate was a simple “1”. It was bought in 2008 by businessman Saeed Abdul Ghaffar Khouri for £7.25 million.

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