Does an illegal plate circumvent average speed cameras?

elscint

An illegally spaced number plate means that the car is NOT insured!! Why? All insurance policies carry a clause which states - "you must notify us if you modify you vehicle or your insurance may be invalidated" - or words to that effect. You wouldn't tell your insurer that you have installed something illegal on your car- would you? No, therefore you have voided you car insurance, its called Contract Law.

AndyMc.....

elscint wrote: »

An illegally spaced number plate means that the car is NOT insured!! Why? All insurance policies carry a clause which states - "you must notify us if you modify you vehicle or your insurance may be invalidated" - or words to that effect. You wouldn't tell your insurer that you have installed something illegal on your car- would you? No, therefore you have voided you car insurance, its called Contract Law.

So if a bulb blows or you run out of washer fluid on a journey your insurance is void too?

Car_54

elscint wrote: »

An illegally spaced number plate means that the car is NOT insured!! Why? All insurance policies carry a clause which states - "you must notify us if you modify you vehicle or your insurance may be invalidated" - or words to that effect. You wouldn't tell your insurer that you have installed something illegal on your car- would you? No, therefore you have voided you car insurance, its called Contract Law.

No, it's called !!!!!!!!.

Fitting a different number plate is not a modification by any stretch of the imagination.

NBLondon

Yes - there are plenty around. At one point I used to amuse myself in crawling traffic by seeing how many there were around. I wonder if the recognition software will eventually get to the stage of being able to recognise an illegal font or spacing then work out what the actual reg mark is and ding the Registered Keeper with a Fixed Penalty automatically? Doubling if caught again...

To be honest - most of them are quite pathetic. If a random observer has to spend more than 10 seconds working out what the owner thinks it says, it's wasted. I occasionally see black on silver plates (only legal on pre '73) on black vehicles (most recently a black Harley Davidson parked on the pavement outside Holborn Tube) and I can see there's an aesthetic thing there. Presumably ANPR can handle those if they are correct font and spacing but would it flag the colours?

AdrianC

NBLondon wrote: »

I occasionally see black on silver plates (only legal on pre '73)

No, they're now legal on anything registered as a historic vehicle, so rolling 40yr, currently manufactured before 1/1/77.

But if you're looking around London for the biggest and longest-term misuser of them, then try starting with large red vehicles.

Car_54

NBLondon wrote: »

Yes - there are plenty around. At one point I used to amuse myself in crawling traffic by seeing how many there were around. I wonder if the recognition software will eventually get to the stage of being able to recognise an illegal font or spacing then work out what the actual reg mark is and ding the Registered Keeper with a Fixed Penalty automatically? Doubling if caught again...

To be honest - most of them are quite pathetic. If a random observer has to spend more than 10 seconds working out what the owner thinks it says, it's wasted. I occasionally see black on silver plates (only legal on pre '73) on black vehicles (most recently a black Harley Davidson parked on the pavement outside Holborn Tube) and I can see there's an aesthetic thing there. Presumably ANPR can handle those if they are correct font and spacing but would it flag the colours?

Software which can read strange fonts, and even handwriting, has been freely available for years.

Why does anyone imagine that the ANPR system can't?

AndyMc.....

Car_54 wrote: »

Software which can read strange fonts, and even handwriting, has been freely available for years.

Why does anyone imagine that the ANPR system can't?

Because they have seen it first hand being unable to read it?

Car_54

AndyMc..... wrote: »

Because they have seen it first hand being unable to read it?

And have we seen any evidence of such a failure?

NBLondon

AdrianC wrote: »

No, they're now legal on anything registered as a historic vehicle, so rolling 40yr, currently manufactured before 1/1/77.

I sit corrected. I didn't know it had been aligned with the VED exemption. But the 06 plate on that Harley is a bit early!

Car_54 wrote: »

Why does anyone imagine that the ANPR system can't?

Because as I said above - wouldn't it be an easy way to whack out penalties and make revenue? Even if questionable ones got routed to a human for a second opinion it should be cost-effective (assuming the penalties are actually collected and not ignored).

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

The reality is in any significantly traffic'd roadworks, few drivers can actually speed for a significant distance as they tend to have three lanes all travelling roughly about 50mph, give or take.

I did have a young girl go absolutely insane as I had the temerity to drive at 50mph, pass her when she got trapped by a line of cars, having passed the first speed camera at about 80mph and then misjudging the lane change.
Having been subjected to a fake ramming from her, I decided to switch to the left lane, but made the mistake of leaving a few car lengths to the car I had just passed, even though I was going to need to pull out again to maintain my pace. She switched lanes aggressively as I was smoothly changing lanes - I suspect she was then caught out by her acceleration into a disappearing space so she had to brake hard, she then switched back and floored it while screaming at me. After she raced passed, I moved back out, only to find that she had virtually stopped in the middle lane to brake test me so I calmly switched to the outside lane and passed her (avoiding a collision - 2 second rule doesn't allow for that sort of behaviour) - more screaming obscenities. She then hurtled forward, doing aggressive lane switching, pushing the handling of her Focus to the limit. She probably got 10 car lengths ahead of me.