Altered plates numbers rise

By JAMES GARDINER

Criminals are using illegal number plates to beat speed camera fines and other driving laws.

Frontline police say it is a growing problem, but police national headquarters and the national speed camera office have refused to discuss the situation, claiming no records are kept.

Police in Auckland have twice been outrun by motorbikes with bogus plates in chases that were so fast they had to back off for public safety.

Dozens of illegal plates have been seized - some doctored with letters and numbers painted over and replaced or altered, others taken from unregistered vehicles no longer on the road.

Dealer plates are also being doctored and used illegally. The plates are issued for a year to allow would-be buyers to test-drive unregistered new, or newly imported, vehicles.

In England cloned number plates are being used to avoid London inner-city congestion charges. Fines of more than $200 have been sent to people who have never driven in the city. Police say criminals are getting replica plates made and putting them on cars of the same make, model and vintage.

In New Zealand surveillance-based road toll collection has been under consideration for several years but not introduced.

Yet some drivers are deliberately setting out to break speeding laws. Stolen number plates were used by baby Kahu kidnapper Terrence Ward Traynor on his getaway car last year, but most criminals simply steal a car, commit their crime then dump the vehicle.

Sergeant Jeff Gerbich of Auckland Motorway police said there had been a loosening of rules, relating to number plates, which he would like addressed.

Cars taken off the road and out of the motor registration system still had plates on them. Personalised plates, which once had to be handed in when not in use, could now be retained by the owner.

Mr Gerbich said dormant plates were being found on vehicles and some people would re-attach personalised plates, possibly because they intended to sell the car, without notifying authorities.

"We've had two pursuits recently with motorcycles with false plates on. Normally it's a plate from another vehicle ... that is unregistered or been crashed and kept in somebody's backyard." He said it was a big problem for the speed camera office.

"You've only got to go to areas of New Zealand to see the numbers of vehicles lying dormant in backyards with number plates on.

"I once chased a concrete mixer down the road." (It was a motorbike with the number plate off a towable concrete mixer.)

Police Commissioner Rob Robinson's spokeswoman, Sarah Martin, said police did not keep information about the numbers of incorrect number plates picked up by speed cameras.

All information about number plates and drivers' licences is held by the Land Transport Safety Authority Transport Registry Centre in Palmerston North.

Centre spokeswoman Rosalie Orr said would not answer questions about false number plates.