Road legal number plates, how can I tell?

Road legal number plates

Number plates to be road legal, must display your registration number correctly, this means you cannot rearrange letters or numbers, space it to look like other words or make it unreadable. Number plates that are not road legal will fail its MOT and you could be fined up to £1,000 for incorrectly displaying number plates.

In 2001 the current vehicle registration format was introduced and must contain the following:

Two letters first – This identifies the location of the car’s registration.

Secondly this will be followed by two numbers- These characters verify how old the car is. For example, if your car is on a 04 plate the car was registered in 2004, the same as a car with the numbers 14. E.g WX04 LET or WX14 LET. Lastly there will be 3 letters after the numbers these are just selected at random.

Front -The background should be white with black writing

Back-The background should be yellow with black writing

No patterns, prints or tints must be on the background of your number plate for it to be road legal. You can still be creative with your number plate by having a personalized plate, just ensure you stick to the rules and regulations.

If you’re wanting to add any of these additional extras to your number plate then you will need to purchase a show plate, please be aware these ARE NOT road legal a for show purposes only.

What makes a number plate road legal

There are many factors to making your number plate road legal, although it can come across as complicated what you can and can’t have on your number plate, here at number pate clinic we make it easy and simple to design with our step-by-step number plate builder. (link)

There are certain requirements for number plates in the UK that must meets the British standards to be deemed Road legal, it must be built on a reflective material so it can be seen, correct text size, and spacing, we ensure all our plates are premium built, and meet the standards to be 100% road legal under our legal plates section.

Are gel number plates legal

Yes, gel number plates are road legal, and meet the standards from DVLA. Gel plates are made by a polyurethane gel resin covering the cut characters on the sheet which gives them a raised look from the number plate.

We ensure all our plates are of the highest quality. They give a fantastic premium look to any number plate and give a unique look to enhance the look of your car.

Do you get points for illegal number plates?

Currently you do not receive points If you don’t display your number plate, change the character spacing, if it is defected, or have the wrong text size. However, you can receive a fine of up to £1000 for illegal number plates although in most cases motorist seem to get £100 fines for displaying incorrect plates.

The House of commons are discussing a new proposal that would see drivers who do not have legal number plates given 3 points and the existing fine for £100.

They want this new law to be approved as they believe it will close a loophole in the law, this will help with number plates being cloned, as they currently say it is too easy for people to buy cloned, incorrectly spaced and banned number plates from online websites without any checks, which then allows criminals to flout the plate and speed recognition cameras and unfortunately its innocent drivers who get the blame for offences they haven’t committed.

If this new law is enforced it could allow ANPR (Automatic number plate recognition) cameras to do this and notify operators of number plates that are not legal and produce fixed points and fines to the owners.

Are 4D number plates legal

Yes, 4D plates are currently legal, however they are now being reviewed and laws will be changing late of 2021 for 4D number plates.