Have you ever been stopped for misspaced number plate?
Discussion
Monkeylegend said:
One for the council thread 
At the risk of being labelled council 
The answer is yes, but it is not a regular thing, usually when a very rare lesser spotted traffic plod cannot pin anything else on you or is having a very quiet day that started badly. In other words, very unlucky if you do get stopped.
Never got stopped after putting the original plate back on it, while waiting for replacements, and left them there for nearly a year until mot time, different reg from V5, but correct for the car.
It is highly unlikely anyone will bother you.
Mate of mine and my brother in law.
So that’s 2 people I know. Both just misspaced as opposed to any attempt to change the numbers or letters.
Actually at a casual glance you’d have been hard pressed to notice the misspacing on my BiL’s plate at all. Incidentally both caught on motorways, presumably normal police just haven’t the time or inclination to bother.
Yes a couple of times although there was no good reason given for why it caused any problem. They said hypothetically their ANPR cameras cannot read a plate with an extra or less space (which is total nonsense). I asked if that was the case with mine and he said no. Therefore there was no issue but to make a point I got a defect notice.
In any case I took it to court and won and got my travel costs back.
In any case I took it to court and won and got my travel costs back.
Yes once on an M62 slip road near Manchester, Cheshire police I seem to remember. Brand new 328i touring, not a bad micky take just no spaces to spell out my name. Had to put up with a 10 minute whinge from a grumpy humorless traffic cop. Told me the DVLA would take it off me. I never changed it and never heard another thing about it. Waste of time.
Yep, I had a plate spaced something like W6TE M instead of W6 TEM (I just made that up, not my actual plate). Got pulled over, I had the correct plates in the back of the car and the officer let me swap them over and go on my way.
Several years later I had another plate with no space at all (e.g. K8MOU) and that didn't get pulled. I was even chatting to a copper at a supermarket whilst stood next to the car and he didn't say anything, went through it's MOTs fine too. I hadn't realised there was no space for months, but did the same thing - bought a correctly spaced plate but just left the old one on. Only took the plate off when I sold the car.
Funnily enough I was once "allowed" to drive home with illegal plates. I had had my numberplates stolen off my car and I had the show plates in the back of my car (the W6TE M) ones. When I reported the theft to 101 I said I had some show plates in the back of the car, as it was 10pm and the car was parked in a public car park, could I drive home that day with the show plates fitted as I didn't want to leave a car with no plates in a public car park overnight. The 101 chap said it'd be fine and that if I was stopped then I had a sensible reason to be using them.
I didn't get stopped, got some new plates made up the next day (correctly spaced) and had no issues since.
Several years later I had another plate with no space at all (e.g. K8MOU) and that didn't get pulled. I was even chatting to a copper at a supermarket whilst stood next to the car and he didn't say anything, went through it's MOTs fine too. I hadn't realised there was no space for months, but did the same thing - bought a correctly spaced plate but just left the old one on. Only took the plate off when I sold the car.
Funnily enough I was once "allowed" to drive home with illegal plates. I had had my numberplates stolen off my car and I had the show plates in the back of my car (the W6TE M) ones. When I reported the theft to 101 I said I had some show plates in the back of the car, as it was 10pm and the car was parked in a public car park, could I drive home that day with the show plates fitted as I didn't want to leave a car with no plates in a public car park overnight. The 101 chap said it'd be fine and that if I was stopped then I had a sensible reason to be using them.
I didn't get stopped, got some new plates made up the next day (correctly spaced) and had no issues since.
Bought a car from Northern Ireland that had one of those bold-font NI plates on it; got off the Ferry at Stranraer and the police pulled me over the moment I drove out the port. Only a warning to get the plates changes ASAP on the basis I had just bought the car; next day, back in Aberdeen and I got pulled over again as I was driving to the local halfords to get the plates made up! Again no action just another warning the plates had to be changed.
ETA this was 2010ish I think so ages ago.
ETA this was 2010ish I think so ages ago.
Edited by parabolica on Tuesday 20th August 09:14
The strict regulation of number plate spacing is based on outdated requirements from early optical character recognition (OCR) technology, which needed perfectly spaced characters to function accurately. These limitations were necessary decades ago when OCR systems were primitive and lacked the sophistication to interpret variations in character spacing.
Gericho said:
Yes a couple of times although there was no good reason given for why it caused any problem. They said hypothetically their ANPR cameras cannot read a plate with an extra or less space (which is total nonsense). I asked if that was the case with mine and he said no. Therefore there was no issue but to make a point I got a defect notice.
In any case I took it to court and won and got my travel costs back.
They obviously reported you for the wrong thing. It's a black and white offence so if they gave you a ticket for Number plate not conforming to standards, you wouldn't have been so lucky. In any case I took it to court and won and got my travel costs back.
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