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[Genem]

My old Merc failed its MOT due to severe corrosion around the front wishbone mount, "drive it home carefully..." The repair garage I took it to told me - and I believe them - that it was not possible to fix, no solid metal close to the mount, no way to ensure the geometry was right.  I sold it on Gumtree as an MOT failure, for spares.  Two days later the guy I'd sold it to rang me to say it was fixed and did I want it back. Perhaps what is needed is a bit more oversight of the MOT garages, a % of vehicles called in 24 hours later for a DVLA Inspection ? 

In this particular case a fairly privileged man, in a leadership role at the top of a large organisation appears to have taken it upon himself to cheat the system out of a few hundred pounds a year, money that should be going to pay for that myriad of services we get from central & local Govt. If guilty I'd throw the book at him. "pour encourager les autres".  Sadly a quick glance at the papers will reveal that leadership by good example appears to be in short supply.

[Herald1360]

MIU 410L would never have been issued.

Hi Herald,

I believe Alfa I and Alfa Z, were only issued in Ireland, but appear to be acceptable, on non-suffix plates that have been "Cherished Transferred" to lots of coaches (charabancs?) on the main-land, presumably so that the passengers cannot work out how old a vehicle they are travelling in.

MN and MAN, were only issued by the Isle of Man, and cannot be transferred to the mainland UK vehicles. (Does the I of M stil have "flogging" on their Statute Book? We all know that they have "road racing".


602

Hi 602,

As I understand it, IU was an old Irish Republic code for Limerick and therefore cannot be used in any case on a UK vehicle. MIU 410L would never have been issued in any case since the Republic never used the year letter suffix style. Various NI codes (such as IA, Antrim and IB, Armagh may be used on UK vehicles but since NI never used date letters either, simply moving on to the style MIB 1234 etc then MIB 410L equally never could exist.

The "oddest" legitimate registration number I have seen was on a traction engine which had the style XX 0123, yes, a leading zero in the four digit number. Why this (and a few other similar) numbers were ever issued, I've no idea. AH 054 is a genuine example of this, even if the DVLA thinks it runs on diesel! Maybe someone has converted it to oil fired?

[Alan Drover]

I must have mistyped. My old Ariel 3 is MLU 410L . I didn't realize I'd got it wrong. I'm surprised it still exists. .

[Wittsend]

Not quite sure why the Scottish official needed to use the same plate on 2 similar cars.
I can't see the sense, as he could only drive one at a time 

I've heard it's quite common in jurisdictions where you can only drive odd plates on alternative days and even plates vice versa for the perps to have 2 plates - an odd and an even plate.
They switch accordingly.

Richer perps just buy 2 cars, one odd and 1 even.

If this ever gets to court it would be interesting to hear the "excuse" - but I doubt it will.

[Genem]

Not quite sure why the Scottish official needed to use the same plate on 2 similar cars.
I can't see the sense, as he could only drive one at a time 

I think the point was that having both badged up as the same car meant he could just use either as required while only paying one lot of tax etc. Doubtless the other was SORN in its real identity, ready to miraculously re-appear when the time came to sell. A petty, petty evasion,saving peanuts for a man on, reputedly, a salary of £153k + Expenses. He was also a director of another vehicle related company and part owner of a garage & MOT business. Noting that one of the vehicles was at his holiday home on Lewis. I wonder if another bit of the "saving" was using the ferry as a foot passenger, leaving the second car on the Island.  A Police investigation is underway.  ( The car is a diesel too, I'd bet a tenner the one on the island is running on Red...  )

[Wittsend]

Ah ha ...

That starts to make sense now - one on his holiday island, one at his home.

I thought tax & MoT was waived on some of our islands - probably not Lewis then.

I hope the police make some headway. Being in the garage/MoT trade an example needs to be made.


 

[w3526602]

The "oddest" legitimate registration number I have seen was on a traction engine which had the style XX 0123,

Hi Herald,

Way back when, I read something at DVLA about "0" not being allowed on a reg. plate where it could be mistaken for the similar looking alpha characters.

I don't know where I read that ... I used to wander into obscure areas during my lunch sandwich break, to find interesting things to read.

Did you know that if a Civil Servant has to leave early, for medical treatment, on a regular basis, the periods of absence will be agregated, and when it hits 8 hours (or whatever), it will be zeroed, and converted into one days sick absence ... which can affect their promotion prospects? Don't ask me where I found that one, but as I was manager of 70 ladies of child-bearing age ... 

602

[Alan Drover]

In the very early days of registration numbers some areas issued numbers beginning with zero for "heavy motor cars." Norfolk was one such area.

[nathanglasgow]

That behaviour is nothing unusual on the smaller Scottish islands. Good friend of mine grew up on Luing, very few of the vehicles taxed or mot'd and the amount of driving whilst absolutely waisted on booze is deemed normal as almost no public transport to be had. Chances are he's upset some of the locals and they've shopped him to the papers

[Peter Holden]

My nephew has a very incriminating photo of my land rover and another very similar one with the same reg parked in the PO's farm yard.

Peter

[Alan Drover]

XX0123 was t London registration.

[34058]

Slightly off topic: there is a car near where I live, which I often see driving around, that has the three character registration number 069.  I don't know if the first character is a letter O or numeral zero.  The car is a small, bog standard boring jelly mould European runabout, possibly a Peugeot or Renault.  I have never seen it parked up so have not been able to examine the thing closely.

David

Edit to say that I can't find zero69 or O69 on the DVLA database.  I must have not remembered the second and third characters correctly.  I will pay more attention next time I see the car, and report back.

[Genem]

That behaviour is nothing unusual on the smaller Scottish islands. Good friend of mine grew up on Luing, very few of the vehicles taxed or mot'd and the amount of driving whilst absolutely waisted on booze is deemed normal as almost no public transport to be had. Chances are he's upset some of the locals and they've shopped him to the papers

A while back there was a report of a DVLA team going over to one of the islands, dipping tanks for red diesel. They were piped off the island, the piper playing " Will ye no come back again"...

Meanwhile, one of the most popular Bands on Lewis ( and wider) takes its name from the products that power life on the Western Isles..... Peat & Diesel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZM6qAiZZKA

[w3526602]

Hi,

Barbara was in charge of CHERISHED TRANSFERS at DVLC, for a spell, and got involved with "returning" the original registration to a car that raced in the TARGA FLORIA (sp). (Google)

Her letter approving the original registration included a comment that she had seen a photo, in that months edition of a "classics" magazine, of the car wearing it's "not yet approved" registration.  Oops!

602

[RobS]

We had our last Suzuki Swift cloned, one day a letter / fine landed on the mat suggesting that we had illegally parked in a Car Park in Manchester, came with photographs and even one of the occupants getting out of the car and walking off. The only problem was the car was an earlier model (14 plate), silver and had a dent in the boot, ours was only 12 months old (17 plate), grey and no dent plus the occupants (in the car park) were pretty ugly . Scary that it was such a close match.

Two weeks later we had another letter / fine drop on the mat from the police, running a red light and speeding at 1.00am - again in Manchester, so went through the process again of proving that the car had been cloned, but this time we changed the plate to a private one, it's time consuming and expensive when this happens, plus it does nothing for the old blood pressure.

So cloning happens with new cars as well as old.

Robs