Foreign unregistered vehicles

AdrianC

burlingtonfl6 said:

The police apparently have no way or tracking foreign plates and cameras don't work on them either.

Cobblers.

They certainly can apply to the Romanian registration authorities - as any other EU country - for the keeper details. At least, until the end of this year.

The keeper details won't, of course, necessarily tell them who the three men are, or where in the UK they may be.

ontheroad1970

AdrianC said:

burlingtonfl6 said:

The police apparently have no way or tracking foreign plates and cameras don't work on them either.

Cobblers.

They certainly can apply to the Romanian registration authorities - as any other EU country - for the keeper details. At least, until the end of this year.

The keeper details won't, of course, necessarily tell them who the three men are, or where in the UK they may be.

Which is the same in  many cases with UK plates

AdrianC

ontheroad1970 said:

AdrianC said:

burlingtonfl6 said:

The police apparently have no way or tracking foreign plates and cameras don't work on them either.

Cobblers.

They certainly can apply to the Romanian registration authorities - as any other EU country - for the keeper details. At least, until the end of this year.

The keeper details won't, of course, necessarily tell them who the three men are, or where in the UK they may be.

Which is the same in  many cases with UK plates

Precisely.

And, of course, applies equally to the Spanish and French authorities with the many UK-registered cars being driven around by residents there.

iainscomputer

facade said:

It is another example of something that in "Simple Land" where I live, would be trivially easy to do, but seems impossible in The Real World.

all they have to do is ANPR the number plates as they drive off the ferry, then if the Police ANPR them again and there is more than 6 months between driving off the ferry, they impound the car unless/until proof is provided that it left the country and returned less than 6 months ago.

Probably it is as burlingtonfl6 says, and our systems can only recognise UK 'plates, because it has never occurred to Anyone Who Matters that there are any other kind.

facade said:

It is another example of something that in "Simple Land" where I live, would be trivially easy to do, but seems impossible in The Real World.

all they have to do is ANPR the number plates as they drive off the ferry, then if the Police ANPR them again and there is more than 6 months between driving off the ferry, they impound the car unless/until proof is provided that it left the country and returned less than 6 months ago.

Probably it is as burlingtonfl6 says, and our systems can only recognise UK 'plates, because it has never occurred to Anyone Who Matters that there are any other kind.

That’s not a very fair way of doing things, I did hear of a British expat driving to Britain in his Spanish car twice in one year & on the 2nd trip the car was impounded for being in the country too long, just like parking eye double dipping at the supermarket.
Luckily he had proof of his Spanish residence & his Ferry tickets to prove his car was here legally.

facade

iainscomputer said:

That’s not a very fair way of doing things, I did hear of a British expat driving to Britain in his Spanish car twice in one year & on the 2nd trip the car was impounded for being in the country too long, just like parking eye double dipping at the supermarket.
Luckily he had proof of his Spanish residence & his Ferry tickets to prove his car was here legally.

Seems spectacularly fair then, but why doesn't it happen more often?

Dr_Crypto

Probably not worth it for the few cars involved and even less so after 31/12 when there’ll likely be even fewer foreign motors. 

Scrapit

Spainishmplod do go for foreign motors, maybe they like British most.

AdrianC

facade said:

Probably it is as burlingtonfl6 says, and our systems can only recognise UK 'plates, because it has never occurred to Anyone Who Matters that there are any other kind.

ANPR will work on any plate. BUT it can only do an automatic look-up against the UK reg database... because the UK authorities simply don't have direct access to the Romanian database.

The other problem, of course, is that Romanian plates can look VERY similar to UK ones... Can ANPR cope with the national identifier flag?