Irish Indo - Blitz means number's up for trendy but illegal

[adrian]

(From todays irish independent)

THE number is up for thousands of motorists. They face fines of up to €1,265 if their number plates fail the Revenue Commissioner test.

Mobile Revenue Commissioners patrols have just begun a countrywide blitz on illegal car numberplates.

It is part of a joint campaign also designed to target owners of secondhand vehicles, in particular, who have not paid Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT).

It means the end of the road for the glitzy digits and letters which so often adorn sports cars and souped-up hot hatches.

These have become increasingly popular with the rise in economic prosperity and the proliferation of accessories for personalisation of cars.

Only two number plate formats will be allowed, a Revenue Commissioner spokesman confirmed to the Irish Independent - the regular, oblong plate and a deeper square design - and they must be strictly adhered to.

All others, including names and numbers in italics, or in special colours, or plates with sliver numbering and black background, for example, are illegal.

The numbers and letters must be in black on a white reflective background.

The name of the county of registration has to be in Irish at the top of the plate.

And the circular 12-gold-star flag of the European Communities and the letters 'IRL' have to be on the left-hand side of the plate.

The Revenue spokesman said offending owners would be tracked down and fined if they did not meet the legal format.

When contacted by the Irish Independent, a number of garages quoted prices of between €20 to €30 for a new set of plates, though prices can vary quite a bit.

The other major arm of the Revenue campaign is to detect cars that have not been registered here.

That means VRT has not been paid on these vehicles and the Exchequer is being deprived of thousands of euro in most cases.

But there is still time for those with illegal plates.

The Revenue say the details of vehicles with illegal number plates will be recorded and the driver will be given an information leaflet.

They will subsequently get a call from the commissioners.

"We will definitely check out the vehicle afterwards," the spokesman said.

"Follow-up action will be taken to ensure the owners of those vehicles identified display legal number plates."

If owners do not comply, they can be prosecuted and fined as much as €1,265.

[Mustang]

Neil, MyfeckinFTO you watching this?

The clamp down on VRT I can understand, we all have to pay it directly or indirectly. However the number plate issue. As a tax payer I'd be concerned about the level of resources being put into chasing the No Fear gang for something as trivial as italic number plates.

[CJ]

Neil, MyfeckinFTO you watching this?

I'm watching this as well since I read about it yesterday, my front plate is illegal on two grounds:

1. Its a 3/4 size plate (390mm x 84mm as opposed to 520x 112)
2. It has www.fto-ireland.com written in v. small letters at the bottom.

You would want to get a ball locks of a copper who would do you for it, but there are a few out there who wouldn't hesitate. I might just take my chances!

CJ

[Myfeckin FTO]

I'll be taking my chances as well -Heres mine (with the number obsured) - its not too far off to be fair - as CJ says a cop would want to have very little to do to stop you for a borderline plate that is perfectly legible.

http://www.fto-ireland.com/meets/rollin ... C00276.jpg

[Helen]

I think its stupid. i only got new plates on tuesday and the def aint coming off again so soon. They are Class. the last 3 digits are 770 which is now converted into FTO. you need to see it to understand. but the are just in italic and still able to be read as 770.
They must be really strapped for cash to start charging for this.

[Viper]

MyFeckin, yours are illegal regardless of the new law enforcements as you don't have the county name printed in Irish on the top of the place... if you had an NCT test, the car wouldn't pass on account of it.

[Myfeckin FTO]

MyFeckin, yours are illegal regardless of the new law enforcements as you don't have the county name printed in Irish on the top of the place... if you had an NCT test, the car wouldn't pass on account of it.

I'm well aware of that Viper - yet I've been stopped at several checkpoints over the past few months and have yet to encounter a garda that will mention anything about my licence plate - I was stopped only a couple of days ago by a garda who took a good look over the car and whose only concern was the TV aerials on the back window. I think he must have thought it was some kind of speed camera detection device.

I also have standard plates which I can swop out for the NCT - I really don't see what the revenue commissioners have to gain from whether I have "An Clar" on my plate or not.

[Mustang]

MfFTO wrote

I've been stopped at several checkpoints over the past few months

That damn Limerick Shannon rd seems to have check points on it on a regular basis. And on a dual carriage way of all places! It's not safe stoping two lanes of 'high' speed traffic in the pitch dark to look at tax discs. More likely to cause an accident than prevent one.
Last one I was stopped at, they were so busy giving a (heavily modified, and not done tastefully either) civic the once over, that they did not even look at my discs

[Myfeckin FTO]

MfFTO wrote

I've been stopped at several checkpoints over the past few months

That damn Limerick Shannon rd seems to have check points on it on a regular basis. And on a dual carriage way of all places! It's not safe stoping two lanes of 'high' speed traffic in the pitch dark to look at tax discs. More likely to cause an accident than prevent one.

Yeah - I thought there had been an accident on the dual carriageway there recently when all the cars in front of me braked very suddenly to a stop - It just turned out that the guards had decided to check tax discs by stopping very busy evening time traffic (it was also dark) moving at speed along the dual carriageway
And worse still I have seen them pull for speeding from the centre margin of the dual carriageway - my mate was actually stopped by a garda (who had set up in the centre section) in the fast lane and given a speeding ticket while cars all around made 60mph manouvers to merge together in the slow lane - I don't think I would have stopped in this case.


I also have a problem with the "hide behind a wall" or in "the dark approach" taken by a large amount of guards on the roads today - they should adopt a more visible deterent - rather than take their few quick sneaky kills to meet a quota. I came across 2 guards at the bus stop on the dual carriageway the other morning - Garda car nowhere to be seen - looked like people waiting for a bus with the exception that they had their tripod out. Pulling people on a wide clear straight stretch of dual carriageway does nothing for road safety IMO. There seems to be a widening gulf between Legally-right and Morally-right road safety enforcement.

[kevinod]

I found this bit quite amusing myself...

the Exchequer is being deprived of thousands of euro in most cases.

'The Exchequer' and 'deprived' don't seem to fit too well into the same sentence!


Only reason for this I can think of is a mention I heard somewhere of number plate reading speed cameras or something similar, guess they wouldn't work so well with italics/etc.

Kev.

[soc]

I've been stopped at several checkpoints over the past few months and have yet to encounter a garda that will mention anything about my licence plate

They are out there - believe me. My old golf came with non slightly standard number plates - and when I say "slightly" I mean very slightly - they were the correct size plate with correct size letter but the letters were a slightly different text - almost like bold characters. Got stopped by a garda who gave me the whole "you could be fined 1200 euro for each plate" routine - then checked my tax (which was non-existant given I'd only bought the car 2 weeks previous) at which point he started giving it loads about non-display of tax etc., etc. In the end I had to do a lot of "yes guard, no guard, 2 bags full guard" to get away at all......

Makes me wonder, after the bloody car was stolen a couple of weeks later, what the hell most of those boys do when they're at work..... IMHO they just go looking for the easy targets (speed checks are a classic example of this....)