Cherished Number Plates News

DVLA Number Plates Compromising Safety

29 September 2008

BetterDrivingPlease.com believes the DVLA is compromising public safety and breaking its own mission statement by selling plates which are only of value if illegally altered. Mr McGavin says examples listed at by the DVLA for the sale on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week include:

BLA 573R – He claims this is of no value unless altered to "BLASTER";
ARA 814N – has no value unless it is altered to ARABIAN; and,
A771 CUS – little or no value unless altered to ATTICUS.

He believes the plates will tempt drivers to alter them so they become "personalised plates". He said: "How can a government agency be allowed to endorse and profit from encouraging the illegal actions of motorists?"

Yesterday, Damian Lawson, marketing manager of DVLA Personalised Registrations, told the Western Mail the DVLA had no intention of calling off the auction. He said: "The agency’s sale of numbers scheme has certainly raised the profile of personalised registrations in this country. But our decision to sell certain registration numbers does not compromise its position on the requirement to properly display vehicle registration numbers on number plates." All the agency's publicity material and auction sales catalogue makes it clear that numbers must be correctly displayed.

"Each purchaser is told before they buy at auction or through our telesales business that numbers must be properly represented on a number plate. The agency goes to great lengths in warning its customers about the effects of breaking the law. Indeed there are a very small minority of motorists who misrepresent their numbers and enforcement measures are in place to tackle this. However, this should not spoil the enjoyment of the majority who abide by the laws." BetterDrivingPlease.com has compiled 16,750 reports of bad driving since the site was launched.