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Nought to-do
Page 12
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Dh-oh... UK plates cause Euro
:onfusion. David Harris reports.
STEW UK vehicle number plates hat fail to distinguish between the igure 0 and the letter 0 are confusng foreign police forces, according o an Essex salvage company.
A Renault Premium run by 3rentwood-based Warley Auto ;alvage was stopped by German raffic police recently and told that ts number plate, EU03 ORC, was ncorrect.
When the police asked to see the iehicle's registration documents he Germans pointed out the clear difference between '0' and '0' on :he document, which was not -effected on the number plate. Jack Ellwood at Warley says: 'The police added that they had )een following him for some 10km Tying to establish the correct regstration number of )ur truck."
The driver was sub;equently fined €100 or the separate 3ffence of leaving his Jesignated route Inder the new MAUT :barging system — but Ellwood feels that this nay have been waived lad it not been for the licence plate misunderstanding.
The DVLA says the Warley truck was complying fully with the latest UK rules on licence plates, which state that a 0 and an 0 can look identical because their position on the number plate makes it clear which is which.
The sequence is now two letters, which show where the vehicle was registered; two numbers which indicate the vehicle's age; and three random letters.
But Ellwood remains unconvinced that such a system will be helpful to Continental police forces: "How is a German guy supposed to know what is a 0 and an 0 in a British licence plate? He punches what he sees into his computer and our trucks are pulled over."