On Sat, 13 Nov 2004 03:22:13 -0800, Matthew Church wrote:

"By 2004, the DVLA aims to have merged driver, vehicle and insurance
records into a "single or virtually single" database from which the
number-plate microchips will be programmed".

http://www.geocities.com/lclane2/microchips.html

Anyone have any updates on how this plan is getting along?

Well, the last I heard (and there's about 45 days left in 2004) you
couldn't buy Microchipped plates.

If true it's a typical Public Sector IT project i.e. it doesn't work.

It will annoy a lot of people, and the chips will be as tamper proof as
the others, i.e. not at all. Or people will simply bust them (can you
imagine the amount of hammering electronics on a car number plate will
take).

Or you could simply fake a plate that looks like a real one - so how will
the "automatic detection" know if a car is there or not ?

How will it cope with people who are insured rather than cars - people on
company insurance ?

How will it know the driver is insured to drive the car - all it will know
is that there is *some* insurance on the car.

It can't surely store "insurance validity" - if you cancel insurance will
you detach the plates and take them in so they can be reprogrammed ?

What will happen regarding foreign registered vehicles ?

Getting Microchips for £1.00 is no problem ; hell they are cheaper than
that. Getting something that will work and keep working for £1.00 is a
different matter entirely.