With regards to number plate spacing on owners plates such as S200X XX.Is it legal, can you get away with it, also any other advice on this matter would be appreciated such as incidents with the law etc. I know this has been covered before, It's just that I'm close to buying my plate now. Before I get nabbed by a copper, what's the score with this once and for all?
P.s anyone know of any online plate design companies?

 

AFAIK it is illegal to have it mis-spaced and you can be fined about

 

I once got done for having black and silver plates on a car that was too young. I just got some plates from www.fancyplates.com and I was impressed with the service, and the plates (nice Honda decal on it)

 

It is also illegal to manufacture plates with mis-spaced lettering. All number plates are 'supposed' to have the makers name and reference number, they are also liable for prosecution.

 

I was done for my mis-spaced plate this last Easter. Went to Tenby for the weekend and was stopped and fined

 

Nothing much to add to what Mike said - I've had a misplaced plate on for the best part of a year now and haven't been pulled. I even discussed it with the traffic copper who attended the scene after I pranged it on the M6 sliproad at Stafford and he said that he was quite happy that it was legible and so wasn't bothered by it.

What he did say, however, is that it could cause problems with the new Automated Numberplate Recognition System cameras which are increasingly appearing on teh motorway - the mis-spacing can confuse them and cause them to flag your car as being worthy of police attention.

Previous replies to this question have mostly been to the effect that Plod can't usually be arsed to pull you unless he's extremely officious or you're doing something worthy of being pulled in the first place. The Police have to report the misspacing to DVLA who will then warn you that you risk having the number revoked if you persist in mis-spacing it.

 

if the car needs a MOT have some legal plates handy else it will fail.

 

But those plates for `show purposes` they are fine! Obviously not road use guv,

 

Aye but this patter cut no ice with the plate makers local to me, in the end, a favour done for a council worker (fixed his lights in his BMW door locks) meant he made some plates up in the dept. that sorts out stuff for lawnmowers etc. Scratch, scratch

 

My reg. plate was actually made with the space reduced between the numbers & the letters at my request many years ago (It's a "K" reg). The spacing was identical between all characters on the plate. It sat on several cars before a very young P.C. (with nothing to do one afternoon?) pulled my wife over & mentioned it. He followed her for several miles before speaking to her when she parked the car.

He wrote a ticket & insisted that we get it replaced with a correctly spaced version, which we did (from Halfords if I recall). It took Halfords ages to work out that the spacing was correct on the new plate they made, & they even asked MY opinion about it! (the reg. has two number 'ones' in it, so it doesn't matter how you do it, it always looks wrong. The two number 'ones' look too close together).

We then turned up at the Police station with the ticket as requested to show that the work had been done.
A Policeman came out, looked at the new plates & said "You are supposed to correct the spacing on the plate. That's not spaced correctly". We said "Yes it is. It's a new plate!". He said "No it isn't", we told him to speak to Halfords, who had spaced it with their official 'template'. After some discussion, we proved the space between the numbers & the letters was double the other spacing (as it should be), & he lost interest & let us go.

The plate has been legal ever since, but it is all in the eye of the beholder. It still LOOKS wrong.

My only comment - Is it really that important to have a two centimetre gap between the numbers & the letters instead of a one centimetre gap? Because that's all we were stopped for after all.

I guess we must live in a low crime area

Ho hum.