OK, great idea, releasing new-style number plates that supposedly make them harder to remove/swap“. In theory, anyway.

However, what you have to bear in mind is that when people “clone” cars in order to evade things like Congestion Charge, speed cameras and the like, they don’t actually steal the number plates in the first place. They just make a note of what the reg is, wander into any car-parts place, and ask for a pair of numberplates to be made up with that registration. No need to prove you own that car, or anything.

So what would actually stop this issue would be changing the law to make it so that you have to produce – say – the tax disc, or the insurance documents for the car when you ask for numberplates to be made up, and they can only be made up in the same registration as that on the documents you’ve provided.

Common sense really, isn’t it?