Our UK news roundup for July includes a story on plate-blocking bikes, some hazy number plate rules and how a Welsh politician poses a number plate puzzle.
Learning an obscure lesson
Despite repeated warnings that it is illegal to mask or obscure number plates, drivers are still getting caught out. One of the most common pitfalls is the mounting of cycle carry racks on the rear of vehicles. While the number plate may still be clearly visible when the rack is fitted, it often gets obscured as soon as the rack is loaded with bikes.
Regardless of whether the impediment to clear reading of the plate is temporary or permanent, it remains illegal, whatever the cause.
A car was stopped on the M6 near Garstang and Preston in Lancashire earlier this month. The black BMW was carrying a bicycle on a rear-mounted rack, which was blocking sight of the number plate. The driver was issued a fixed penalty notice for obscuring the number plate.
Police said that when people fit cycle racks they must take care not to obscure number plates or lights.
So, if you fit a cycle rack, make sure your plate and lights can still be seen when the rack is loaded with your bike(s).
Clear as mud
Regtransfers recently wrote a comment piece for Auto Express, expressing concern about how difficult it is to find clear and definitive explanations of the number plate regulations. Part of the reason it is so hard to find a clear, comprehensive summary of the rules is that the rules don't answer all questions in a clear way.
This slight fogginess around aspects of UK number plate regulations was also raised recently by, surprisingly, an American motoring website.
Jason Torchinsky of theautopian.com website lamented uncertainty around the status of stick-on number plates of the kind often seen on the bonnets of E-Type Jaguars. As Mr Torchinsky points out, the British Standard for number plates is 'non-prescriptive'.
In other words, it doesn't set out the exact, precise specifications for plates, just a list of qualities they must possess and tests they must be able to pass.
Here lies one of the roots of the uncertainty that Regtransfers has also commented on. Where The Autopian uses the example of adhesive, flexible plates, our Auto Express piece referred to '4D' number plates. Both types suffer from this kind of Schrodinger's Cat situation of being seemingly neither legal nor illegal in themselves.
The rules don't prohibit 4D plates with their raised characters. The rules do not expressly prohibit stick-on plates. In theory, both should be legal provided they meet the requirements of BS AU 145e and are clearly readable by humans and cameras. So, how does any prospective purchaser or user of such plates know whether the plates they buy will be legal? They have to make an educated guess.
It seems likely that stick-on plates will be illegal in most, if not all, cases. For a start, they are flexible and will therefore won't meet the Standard's rigidity requirements. But we can't say that for certain as, once the plates are applied to a car bonnet, they become, effectively, rigid.
4D plates are available that meet all the requirements of BS AU 145e, rigidity, reflectivity etc. However, drivers have been stopped and fined by police for using them.
The issue, it seems, is the degree to which the characters are raised. If the letters stand too tall then, according to police, they become difficult to read and, thus, illegal.
These are minority circumstances but they still cause headaches for the minority who encounter them.
Welsh MP's dual-plate puzzle
At the end of last month, the BBC reported that Labour had suspended Rhianon Passmore, a Labour member of the Senedd. Ms Passmore faced a police investigation after photos showed her car with one properly fitted front number plate and an additional front plate seemingly hanging from, or leaning against, the car. It later emerged that the extra plate had been covering the other plate but had come loose as the adhesive tape holding it had failed.
A police investigation concluded that the car had been on private property, so no offence had been committed. Labour duly rescinded Ms Passmore's suspension.
The puzzling aspect is in the details of the dangling plate, as reported by the BBC. The story on the BBC website stated "A HPI check showed that the number plate with what appeared to be adhesive tape on it was the previous registration of the vehicle until earlier this year."
We find that description a little ambiguous. Does the BBC mean it HPI checked the plate that remains fixed to the car or the dangling plate whose tape failed? We can only assume they mean the HPI check was done on the plate that remains in situ: if they meant the HPI check was on the dangling plate then we'd wonder why someone would cover the car's current registration plate by sticking its previous registration plate over the top with tape.
