NewReg.com News Archive - Page 2

The trust said stiffer controls on plate suppliers has forced criminals wanting to "clone" cars to steal plates from existing vehicles. Innocent motorists could be saddled with fines and accused of speeding and other offences as a result. The trust, which said there were 14,176 plate thefts last year, advised car owners to report thefts to the police.

Paul Watters, head of roads and transport for the trust, warned of the dangers of ignoring such thefts. He said:

"You may never know that your car has been cloned until speeding, parking and congestion penalty charge tickets arrive on the doormat. You will have great difficulty convincing the authorities it was not your car - they will demand that you prove your innocence."

The trust highlighted the case of a man who commuted into London by train but was hit with bills totalling £8,000 for congestion charge and speeding offences. The car cloned with his vehicle's number plate had entered the charge zone at least 28 times.

As many as one in 250 vehicles entering the London congestion charge zone may be using false number plates, said the trust. And more than £14m is lost annually by petrol stations from drive-offs, many involving cloned cars, it added.

Police in Derbyshire and Lincolnshire have joined forces on a project to share technology that will allow them to scan car Number Plates and automatically check them against police intelligence databases.

Derbyshire Constabulary has used mobile automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology on its traffic police vehicles since 1999 and is the lead authority on the five-year framework deal that could be extended to other east Midlands police forces. The ANPR technology cross-references various databases including the Police National Computer, local intelligence systems and DVLA systems and alerts traffic police to what are classed as "vehicles of interest" that need to be stopped for further checks. Chief inspector Paul Berry, head of the Derbyshire road policing unit, said in a statement:

"ANPR is a useful tool in helping us to deprive criminals of the use of the roads. We will continue to develop the use of ANPR in the county in order to make the roads safer for all and to combat the use of vehicles on our roads by criminals."

The value of the framework deal, which was awarded to Civica, has not been disclosed. The government is spending £15m to support ANPR development through to 2006 with the aim of developing a national network of thousands of cameras that will scan Number Plates and check them against police databases.

The trial of the technology last year ran into problems because of the poor quality of the data held in the DVLA databases but both the DVLA and police forces have since said that steps have been taken to improve it.