Personalised number plates in fancy typefaces to be banned

Motorists who have car number plates made up in fancy typefaces face prosecution under new Government proposals.

So widespread is the abuse that the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) is now to introduce a standardised lettering for all new cars from September.

This is part of an overhaul of the vehicle registration system aimed at making car plates easier to read and so help police fight crime. Ministers are also considering proposals to regulate the supply of number plates.

There has recently been a rise in the number of vehicles displaying doctored number plates, which hamper efforts by police to trace hit and run drivers and those breaking the speed limit.

Under existing rules, drivers already face prosecution if they alter, re-arrange or misrepresent the characters on number plates making it difficult for police to read the plate.

But the rules do not cover the typeface, a loophole that has led to a rash of new styles and even led motorists to strategically place screws to give the appearance of words. Since March 1999, there have been 1,406 recorded offences of number plate doctoring by drivers who are liable to a maximum fine of £1,000. There are, as yet, no details of which standardised font will become mandatory, and it will not affect existing number plates.

Tomorrow, a lay preacher from Wales will appear before magistrates for altering his Ford Sierra number plate to read DEUT 818.

The police who stopped Peter David near his home in Neath, South Wales, were unimpressed by this reference to the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy and launched a prosecution alleging he was driving with an unlicensed number plate. The preacher is expected to tell the court that God told him he did not need insurance and he has been licensed from heaven.

Police are also investigating the sale of number plates which have a special surface to evade detection by speed cameras. Several companies are charging drivers as much as £40 for the plates which have a special surface to reflect the camera flash so the numbers are reduced to a blur on film.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has criticised the sale of the plates which, it says, endanger other drivers.