More than 30 years ago... forward-thinking Mum bought private number plate KAR 1L for her 12 week old son. Now little Karl was a tad on the young side to make use of it at the time... his feet didn't quite reach the pedals for a start! So Mum kept it on her car for a couple of decades.
Yep...a personalised number plate gave a robber away. James Snell from Cardiff got together with his brother Wayne and a couple of other robbers, and used his own BMW car with his own personalised number plate to carry out a bank robbery. Witnesses saw the robbers lift a drain cover and smash the windows of the bank. And make off with over £100k of loot. But what the robbers didn't count on was the very distinctive personalised number plate (J4 MES) that stood out like a sore thumb.
Well it's that time of year... the rush for private number plates as an alternative Christmas present is now over. And it's been busy. Busier than you might expect in the current climate.
There's a lot of confusion out there about what is or isn't a legal number plate.
It's that time again. Another 1600 personalised number plates will be for sale at the next DVLA number plate auction in August.
It doesn't matter that they're not personalised number plates. The number plates themselves are of no real value to you or me - whether they're personalised, or just standard number plates. BBC Ulster Radio DJ Stephen Nolan was stunned when he was a victim last week.
Today it was announced that on-the-spot fines for illegal number plates are to double from £30 to £60.
The DVLA are very specific as to how a legal number plate should be displayed - including font, letter size, and spacing.
For those of you not 'in the know' the DVLA holds the occasional sealed bid number plate auction. There's no need to sit in an auction room... just send in a bid for cherished registrations you want to buy... and wait for the deadline to pass.
Last night I popped across to Melton Mowbray for an informal gathering of cars and motorbikes. It was a stunning evening - so it had to be top down, shades on, loud music... as i whizzed along the country lanes down to Melton in my little MX-5. Fab :) I'm not really a petrol head, but I do love cars. I see cars as works of art - with lots of character and amazing shapes and lines. Being a girlie, what goes on under the bonnet doesn't really push any buttons (pardon the pun!) for me.
Yesterday I was poking around some photos of interesting personalised number plates on flickr, and came across what I thought were some fabulous ones on vans belonging to London plumbing company Pimlico Plumbers spotted by eagle-eyed fellow number plate enthusiasts.
