clive williams
Senior Member
- Joined
- Aug 23, 2005
- Messages
- 586
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Hi all,
To start this off I'll admit to being an anarchist (non-practising to big brother who's watching us all) at heart.
This morning I went to the local high street motorist shop to get two rear number plates (one for a trailer and the other for a bike rack). The car is registered in the wife's name so I took along the reg. document and her photocard license. All OK.
I enquired about the docs required for a new rear number plate for my car, which is a bit tatty. I have an old fashioned paper license to which I am sentimentally attached and need other documents. Now, I am not for business reasons a home owner and therefore don't have any utility bills in my name. Accordingly, I have to supply a bank or building society statement, which I consider to be personal and confidential. Not only that, I have no trust that the herbert in the store could not use that info for more serious criminal acts. We are constantly told by the government and the police to keep this info secret!!!!
The whole point of this documentation is to confirm that the person ordering the plate is who they say they are. But:
1) I've just successfully ordered two plates using someone elses documents.
2) I can supply a passport, which has a photo and has been checked thoroughly by the government, but this falls in the same list as the driving license and cannot be used with the license as proof of identity.
3) What happens when a youngster say, wants a number plate for their moped, which is registered to them? They won't have utility bills in their name, so they must rely on confidential bank/building soc. statements - what if they don't have any accounts???
All of these knee jerk security measures are useless anyway as the thieves nick the number plate off the car! in fact, mine on the 500E is held on in a standard german plate holder with four plastic loose clips. The new extra sticky plates, which break when you try to pull them off will not work as the vinyl backing will come off before the plate breaks and you can patch it up. In any case, what about the millions of cars with easily removeable plate still running around.
Sorry about the rant!:-x :-x but this government never properly thinks any legisation through.
Clive
500E
E320CDIT210
To start this off I'll admit to being an anarchist (non-practising to big brother who's watching us all) at heart.
This morning I went to the local high street motorist shop to get two rear number plates (one for a trailer and the other for a bike rack). The car is registered in the wife's name so I took along the reg. document and her photocard license. All OK.
I enquired about the docs required for a new rear number plate for my car, which is a bit tatty. I have an old fashioned paper license to which I am sentimentally attached and need other documents. Now, I am not for business reasons a home owner and therefore don't have any utility bills in my name. Accordingly, I have to supply a bank or building society statement, which I consider to be personal and confidential. Not only that, I have no trust that the herbert in the store could not use that info for more serious criminal acts. We are constantly told by the government and the police to keep this info secret!!!!
The whole point of this documentation is to confirm that the person ordering the plate is who they say they are. But:
1) I've just successfully ordered two plates using someone elses documents.
2) I can supply a passport, which has a photo and has been checked thoroughly by the government, but this falls in the same list as the driving license and cannot be used with the license as proof of identity.
3) What happens when a youngster say, wants a number plate for their moped, which is registered to them? They won't have utility bills in their name, so they must rely on confidential bank/building soc. statements - what if they don't have any accounts???
All of these knee jerk security measures are useless anyway as the thieves nick the number plate off the car! in fact, mine on the 500E is held on in a standard german plate holder with four plastic loose clips. The new extra sticky plates, which break when you try to pull them off will not work as the vinyl backing will come off before the plate breaks and you can patch it up. In any case, what about the millions of cars with easily removeable plate still running around.
Sorry about the rant!:-x :-x but this government never properly thinks any legisation through.
Clive
500E
E320CDIT210
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