front plate (again)

[onewhitey]

Hi all, just been tugged for a front plate that may be smaller than legal, not personalised, legal font, just smaller, on an import wrx. the officer took a photo but made a big deal of having no ruler to measure the plate. Is it worth going to court? at the moment its £100 fixed penalty.

[sc0tt]

Well is it legal?

[Durzel]

sc0tt said:

Well is it legal?

This.

Why haven't you got a square plate with motorcycle size font? This is the provision made for imports with smaller apertures.

[Roo]

Durzel said:

sc0tt said:

Well is it legal?

This.

Why haven't you got a square plate with motorcycle size font? This is the provision made for imports with smaller apertures.

It is for North American imports. Jap imports still need the correct size lettering.

[jkh112]

Roo said:

It is for North American imports. Jap imports still need the correct size lettering.

I am not sure that is correct. I recall the regs allow for smaller size plates to be used on cars imported to the uk where it is not possible to fit a full size plate, I do not think it specifies which continent the car came from.

[Roo]

It appears that you are indeed correct.

I thought I'd read that Jap stuff still needed the correct size letters, was a long time ago though. US plates I deal with all the time.

As an aside, there's no legislation about the actual size of the plate. It needs certain spacings and border sizes but that's it as far as size goes.

[kmpowell]

onewhitey said:

Hi all, just been tugged for a front plate that may be smaller than legal, not personalised, legal font, just smaller, on an import wrx. the officer took a photo but made a big deal of having no ruler to measure the plate. Is it worth going to court? at the moment its £100 fixed penalty.

If you read this reply a chap on the supra forum received from the DVLA, you have grounds to contend the fine if your car is JDM and the font is 64mm...

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?204814...

[London GT3]

I think you have just been unlucky. I would pay the fixed penalty and hope you don't bump into that one again.

I have had 3/4 size front plates on several cars for the last 10 years and never had a problem from the Police.

[Durzel]

kmpowell said:

If you read this reply a chap on the supra forum received from the DVLA, you have grounds to contend the fine if your car is JDM and the font is 64mm...

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/showthread.php?204814...

Had this letter myself in the car when I had both my Skylines for when I got stopped.

[jkh112]

The referenced latter from the DVLA states that smaller letters can be used if :
"and the vehicle's construction/design cannot accommodate standard size numberplates."

So before fighting this, are you sure that a standard size plate will not fit on the front of your WRX?

[Roo]

If he can't get a proper sized one on the back he doesn't need a proper sized one on the front.

[jkh112]

That is not an interpretation of the regs I had thought of before. How would you make a magistrate see the regs the same way?

[rigga]

Standard size will fit front and back on a wrx.

Don't happen to run a large front mount intercooler do you op? Hence the smaller plate.

[Roo]

jkh112 said:

That is not an interpretation of the regs I had thought of before. How would you make a magistrate see the regs the same way?

SVA/IVA approval applies to the whole car. If you can't fit a standard plate to either end you don't have to if one end is allowed to use a smaller plate.

My front plate is, legally, tiny as I can't fit a full sized plate on the rear.

[jkh112]

If a standard size fits front and rear then I see no grounds for contesting the FPN.
If the size in the rear is restricted then some documentation from the SVA/IVA rules/guidance could be used as evidence to put in front of magistrates to ensure they do not interpret the regs the same way I did.

[Roo]

jkh112 said:

If a standard size fits front and rear then I see no grounds for contesting the FPN.
If the size in the rear is restricted then some documentation from the SVA/IVA rules/guidance could be used as evidence to put in front of magistrates to ensure they do not interpret the regs the same way I did.

If the car has SVA/IVA approval that's all that matters. It's an import.

[jkh112]

I agree with you, but just because a vehicle passed the SVA/IVA test at some point in the past does not necessarily mean that the currently fitted plates are legal (plates can be swapped for different ones after a car first hits the road).
As the regs are ambiguous, I am suggesting that if the OP chooses his day in court over this then he cannot rely on the magistrates having such an in depth knowledge of the SVA/IVA test as you. In order to ensure the magistrate understands the position then something in writing would be good, otherwise it is his view against the policeman who issued the FPN.

[Roo]

See post #2.

[Ozzie Osmond]

To use a motorcycle plate the car

• MUST be a personal import from outside Europe, and
• MUST have an aperture which won't accommodate a normal UK plate.

AFAIK if one end of the car has a small aperture but the other will fit a normal UK plate, you should have a motorcycle plate on one end and a normal UK car plate on the other.

As far as normal car plates go, the rules don't specify the size of the backing plate but do specify,

• Font
• Letter/number size
• Letter/number spacing
• Minimum border around the letters/numbers

By the way, if a plate is legal in ANY country of the EU it is legal in ALL countries of the EU. In other words, I think you can have a UK registration number made up on a continental metal plate and it's UK legal. But I'm not promising...

[Roo]

Ozzie Osmond said:

AFAIK if one end of the car has a small aperture but the other will fit a normal UK plate, you should have a motorcycle plate on one end and a normal UK car plate on the other.

SVA/IVA applies to the whole car, not one end of it.