" wrote:

Colin, I understand what you say about impracticality of "local"
legally-enforced bike registration; i.e. it would have to be national
or nothing.

Why? The congestion charge applies to any vehicle entering central
London no matter where in the UK they're from. I don't see legally
why it couldn't be possible to legislate that anyone operating a
bicycle in Greater London must register so long as it were reasonable
easy for people from outside London to register, perhaps have an
office at each mainline terminus where you could register and obtain a
plate or be able to order a plate to be sent through the post.

I know there's not a hope of Ken getting this through, but as a
pedestrian who walks from Cannon Street to Clerkenwell and back every
working day and sees cyclists riding on pavements and through red
lights every such day, I'd love to see it happen.
--
Roy

Roy Stilling wrote:

I know there's not a hope of Ken getting this through, but as a
pedestrian who walks from Cannon Street to Clerkenwell and back every
working day and sees cyclists riding on pavements and through red
lights every such day, I'd love to see it happen.

I'd personally far rather see more police on the streets to catch them.
In my opinion, almost-Orwellian surveillance is not the answer.

Neil

Neil Williams wrote:
I'd personally far rather see more police on the streets to catch them.
In my opinion, almost-Orwellian surveillance is not the answer.

I'd be for registration if it was workable and enforceable. However,
living in the real world it's clear it wouldn't be. So, the quicker the
idea is dropped the better.

The powers that be don't seem to want to officially disclose what the
number of false/cloned plates in use to avoid parking tickets, CC,
speeding fines is, but it IS significant I have no doubt*. In
Stockholm, where I am now, it's suddenly become a massive problem that
didn't exist before (since their introduction of a congestion charge
enforced by number plate cameras) and has been reported as such,
presumably because it's officially still on trial.

This would simply happen with bikes and you can't seriously imagine a
load of people being employed to try and trace the offending cyclists!

Jonathan

* There's another problem too; those that ARE caught can use the cloned
plate argument as a defence. Either way, a police officer catching you
on the street does away with this and possibly gets the offender for
other things too.

On 31 Jul 2006 14:13:57 -0700, "Jonathan Morris"
wrote:

The powers that be don't seem to want to officially disclose what the
number of false/cloned plates in use to avoid parking tickets, CC,
speeding fines is, but it IS significant I have no doubt.

1 in 250 was the rate quoted in a newspaper whose title escapes me at
the moment. That is a high value if true. It's possible the clones are
using similar car makes to the victims' original too which presents a
major problem for the innocents: it seems the onus is on the innocent
at present to "prove" innocence but I haven't seen any cases where
"clone!" was a successful defence. It's bound to happen and the sooner
the better - the current CC system is very expensive at 50mil/year (to
raise 47), poorly signed (no ON or OFF at the boundary such as used in
the US) and depends 100% on a bit of plastic containing letters and
numbers.

In other words ready for undermining.

--
Old anti-spam address cmylod at despammed dot com appears broke
So back to cmylod at bigfoot dot com

Colum Mylod wrote:
1 in 250 was the rate quoted in a newspaper whose title escapes me at
the moment. That is a high value if true. It's possible the clones are
using similar car makes to the victims' original too which presents a
major problem for the innocents:

Yes, that is how it works. It means you can avoid ANPR in police cars
too, assuming the car you've cloned is okay as far as the DVLA is
concerned.

If you used any plate, it would stand out if the police (or Capita) did
any manual checks.

The other trick, more common now (an increase of 2000%) is bringing
your foreign registered car from another EU state and never
re-registering it here even after many years have passed. We've got
loads of Polish cars on our estate (but that's just as it is here, it
certainly isn't isolated to just one country), many which are in no way
roadworthy. They get no hassle at all. Nor will they get tickets,
speeding penalties or anything else. In fact, while they probably need
third party insurance if they ARE stopped, they don't need an MOT or
road tax either.

You can't just blame the 'foreigners within the EU', because a car
magazine highlighted how easy it is for any Brit to do the same. I'm
sure a lot of foreign cars over here are owned by people using them to
avoid detection. In fact, in many ways I can see why I might want to do
it myself until honesty kicks in.

And the Government still thinks a camera in a box and plastic police on
the ground is the way forward?

Jonathan

Jonathan Morris ) gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying :

The other trick, more common now (an increase of 2000%) is bringing
your foreign registered car from another EU state and never
re-registering it here even after many years have passed. We've got
loads of Polish cars on our estate (but that's just as it is here, it
certainly isn't isolated to just one country), many which are in no way
roadworthy. They get no hassle at all. Nor will they get tickets,
speeding penalties or anything else. In fact, while they probably need
third party insurance if they ARE stopped, they don't need an MOT or
road tax either.

They are required to be legal in the country of registration - so if Poland
requires insurance/MOT/road tax, those must be current for the vehicle to
be legal in the UK. If Poland doesn't require any of those, then they
aren't required for the vehicle to be legal here - within the temporary
import time limit (6 months?)

Jonathan Morris wrote:
You can't just blame the 'foreigners within the EU', because a car
magazine highlighted how easy it is for any Brit to do the same. I'm
sure a lot of foreign cars over here are owned by people using them to
avoid detection. In fact, in many ways I can see why I might want to do
it myself until honesty kicks in.

There used to be (though less now) a lot of german and netherlands
registered cars in london with very un-german looking drivers. Now as
you mentioned theres a lot of polish plates and also lithuanian and
latvian.
How long before they all get sold on to Brits with foreign plates
included
is anyones guess. The government have really made a rod for their own
backs with all the road and speed cameras but they're too dumb to see
it.

B2003

In article .com,
(Jonathan Morris) wrote:

Colum Mylod wrote:
1 in 250 was the rate quoted in a newspaper whose title escapes
me at the moment. That is a high value if true. It's possible the
clones are using similar car makes to the victims' original too which
presents a major problem for the innocents:

Yes, that is how it works. It means you can avoid ANPR in police
cars too, assuming the car you've cloned is okay as far as the DVLA is
concerned.

If you used any plate, it would stand out if the police (or Capita)
did any manual checks.

I spotted a false plate once. I checked the tax disc which had a
different registration on and reported it to the police. It turned out
the guy was riding his motorbike while disqualified.

--
Colin Rosenstiel