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By Baroness Gardner of Parkes - 6th October 2010
Baroness Gardner of Parkes writes for ePolitix.com ahead of her question on the enforcement of traffic regulations on foreign-owned cars.
Whether they will review the regulations regarding enforcement procedures for traffic and parking offences so as to make them effective for cars with foreign number plates
In April 2008, after the European Commission had brought forward proposals for cross-border enforcement of traffic offences, I asked a Lords question on enforcement of traffic offences.
My supplementary question asked if the minister was "aware of the problem – particularly in London, which has a large number of foreign-registered vehicles – of the unreadability of number plates by the automatic number plate recognition system? It cannot read plates in Cyrillic or Arabic and, in future, it will no doubt be unable to read Chinese. These drivers are escaping parking penalties and congestion charging simply because their number plates cannot be recognised.
"I understand that some countries propose issuing such people with temporary number plates on arrival – perhaps they have to put up a bond for that. I think that our government has such proposals for lorries, but not for others. Can the minister tell me the position?"
The minister's reply was:
"My Lords, the noble Baroness raises an interesting point about enforcement. All vehicles manufactured since 1 January 1973 must have a number plate made of reflecting material; that at the front must be white, that at the rear must be yellow and they must have black characters. We expect that for conformity. The typeface of number plates has to be substantially the same. If it is not, the police are entitled to investigate and to bring an offence. The issue is important and I accept that there is a problem. The police are aware of it and we need to deal with it. The noble Baroness's point about foreign countries issuing temporary plates is very useful."
Little seems to have changed, but the recent marked increase in disturbance in London caused by noisy vehicles has drawn attention to this matter again. The difficulty of enforcement means that residents are complaining that they are even unable to sleep.
I think there is a case for the department of transport to examine the cost/benefit and feasibility of issuing temporary UK licence plates to vehicles on arrival in this country. Taking a bond to meet costs of any unpaid penalty, which would be collected before the vehicle could be taken out of the country, could be one way of dealing with this.
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