Small front number plate
Discussion
Have done nearly 10K miles in my (ahum) Westfield with reduced size front plate and passed many of traffic officer on my travels, and not once did they feel the need to speak to me about it. The only comment I've received about it is from my (now friendly) MOT tester... Your mileage may vary though!
From what I have heard:
1. The penalty for not having a plate is much less than having an illegal plate
2. The penalty for illegal plates is now much more serious, a friend who had 3/4 size plates for years was stopped last year and told by the policeman that there can be a large fine, and loss of registration with compulsory Q registration of cars with illegal plates!
3. If you want a smaller plate, just buy a reg with less digits, mine has 6 and with the regulation surround, it is only just as wide as the nose cone and perfectly legal
1. The penalty for not having a plate is much less than having an illegal plate
2. The penalty for illegal plates is now much more serious, a friend who had 3/4 size plates for years was stopped last year and told by the policeman that there can be a large fine, and loss of registration with compulsory Q registration of cars with illegal plates!
3. If you want a smaller plate, just buy a reg with less digits, mine has 6 and with the regulation surround, it is only just as wide as the nose cone and perfectly legal
This is from DVLA Information Document INF104. (I'd put a link to it, but it won't hyperlink):
• 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
If you get a number with fewer characters, following these guidelines will result in a smaller plate. I hope that helps.
• 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
If you get a number with fewer characters, following these guidelines will result in a smaller plate. I hope that helps.
I think it depends on what cop you get. I was pulled as I had a small plate on the front. I told the officer that the full size plate kept catching the road and due to the crap roads we have it ended up ripping the plate off along with half the nose cone so from there on after spending loads of money buying a new nose and spraying etc I put a small plate on to solve the problem. He said fair enough and had a quick chat about the car and asked me to give it a good blip on the throttle. Top cop and let me on my way.
I've had a five digit number on my 7 since '99 with standard font and spacing. The plates have been shortened to about 425mm and haven't attracted any adverse comments from either testers or Polis. The current font is slightly narrower than that used on my plates, so this could possibly be reduced even further without it looking chopped.
Edited by gsdoody on Sunday 14th February 14:35
I had a small but correctly spaced front plate with velcro and a full size one in the boot so that, should I be stopped I could apologise and switch them. Fortunately I was never stopped. I don't think the police are particularly interested in middle aged men in Caterhams...
... ETA note the huge number of illegal plates on the C44 PPY plates thread on the general gassing forum, the fact that they turn up again and again at MOT (so are presumably used all the time between the MOT tests) and that the owners must get away with it all the time. I can't believe that there is much risk for the average Caterham owner +/-beard, fully MOT'd and insured, out on nice sunny weekends and likely to be of far less interest than the group of lads in the Scooby with a clearly mis-spaced creatively screw-capped and odd font plate out and about in the middle of the night... I've changed my Caterham for a different fun car on which I have normal sized plates fully legal except for the lack of a postcode at the bottom, which I doubt would be noticed, let alone of any interest whatsoever.
... ETA note the huge number of illegal plates on the C44 PPY plates thread on the general gassing forum, the fact that they turn up again and again at MOT (so are presumably used all the time between the MOT tests) and that the owners must get away with it all the time. I can't believe that there is much risk for the average Caterham owner +/-beard, fully MOT'd and insured, out on nice sunny weekends and likely to be of far less interest than the group of lads in the Scooby with a clearly mis-spaced creatively screw-capped and odd font plate out and about in the middle of the night... I've changed my Caterham for a different fun car on which I have normal sized plates fully legal except for the lack of a postcode at the bottom, which I doubt would be noticed, let alone of any interest whatsoever.
Edited by Revisitph on Saturday 13th February 21:32
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