Slashdot Mirror

Wa Wa OOOOPS!

Nope ... they will also have to make it law that any second hand sale of a mobile phone is also registered ... much like car sales require the seller and the new buyer to notify the DVLA as the previous, and new, "registered keeper".

Oh yes ... it would have to be law that anyone bringing a foriegn registered mobile into the UK would have to declare it at the border!

It's just the second act of the usual Security Theatre! If they can convince the stupid public it will keep them safe from terrorists it's easier to pass into law, but the sad fact is that it obviously won't have any such effect, because anyone hell-bent on being a suicide bomber will find some way around it! Steal or clone a phone, or get one with VOIP capability and only converse with other members of your 'cell' using the VOIP channel perhaps?

Obviously, for "suicide bomber" you may substitute "numpty doctors" who can't even make a car bomb explode! I always thought doctors were supposed to be cleverer than the rest of us, but apparently they have their fare share of muppets too!

> Being insured is a state of the driver, not the vehicle. To imply that "not being on a database of cars that have been named
> by somebody as their primary vehicle when purchasing insurance" is equivalent to being "subject to an offence" is just wrong.
> This technique throws up a huge number of both false positives and false negatives.

That may be true for insurance, but in the UK, every car is required to have "road tax" paid on it. The tax is paid on the car, not the driver. If the registered owner of the car has not paid roadtax and has not declared the car "off the road", then he is committing an offence - even if he has sold the car to someone else (and hasn't registered the transaction with the DVLA).

Guess what? Anyone can gain access to the DVLA database on payment of a modest fee by claiming they run a private car park (and hence need access to the database to pursue unauthorized parkers.) If you doubt this, here it is on the DVLA's website.

16 for a moped with L plates I believe (well was back when I was a teenager)

Also what is this stuff about 2 years of lessons? A mate had no formal lessons and passed the DAY of his 17th birthday and could drive a car - granted he had driven before. And yes legally as on private property you can drive whatever, however old you are (my father for example learnt to drive a tractor at his parents farm at around 11!) On average it's normally 6 months after you turn 17 you take your test (assuming no exams in the way and stuff) and only 20-30 1 hr lessons - again some people did it in a lot less and a mate from uni took over a hundred lessons and still couldn't get the hang of gears (he has since passed on an auto but in the UK that means you can't drive manuals ever, unless you retake the test).

I did hear many years back that in Germany if you fail twice you have to see a psychiatrist, although that was about 10 years ago. The papers claimed all the Germans were coming over to the UK to take their test as it was easier and you still got a European Licence and could convert over to the German one when you got back home.

And I just googled the DVLA website and here are the ages. If you don't want to look:

In general, the minimum ages for driving on British roads are 16 years for invalid carriages and mopeds, 17 years for agricultural or forestry tractors, small vehicles and motorcycles, and 21 years for medium/large sized vehicles, minibuses and buses.

That's under consideration too. There are plans in the pipeline to also make 'tamper-proof' number plates mandatory: these are designed to self-destruct when they are removed.

http://www.dvla.gov.uk/public/consult/consultee_re p_veh_num_plate_sec.htm

"19. The use of number plates that cannot be re-used once detached from a vehicle would be a major step forward in preventing the theft of number plates for cloning vehicles or to avoid congestion charges etc."

It's also worth noting paragraph 1. of the same consultation document.

"The culture of secure number plates that we are attempting to develop requires that plates should no longer be seen as isolated commodities but as an integral part of the vehicle. "

Yes

from http://www.aatrust.com/index.asp?PageID=31&Year=20 05&NewsID=64

Last year, in the 26 UK police forces that now record the crime, there were 14,176 confirmed thefts of number-plates. Up to one in 250 vehicles may be entering the London congestion charge zone on false number-plates and more than £14 million is lost annually by petrol stations from drive-offs, mostly involving cloned cars.

To counter this it looks like that the British government is looking at RFID tags in numberplates

from http://www.dvla.gov.uk/public/consult/vrm_security /vrm_security.htm

(i) Electronic tagging has the potential to provide the most reliable method of preventing the misrepresentation of a vehicle's identity through the display on its number plate of the registration mark of another vehicle ie "ringing" or "cloning."

slashnik

Yes, we do need to pay our fair share of road usage. In the UK (the nation I was refering to), this is called the Road Tax (Source), although for newer cars this is based upon CO2 emmisions. I agree, it should be the same and should also be quite a bit lower, with the extra being made up by an increase in fuel tax. That way ppl might think twice about making a journey, as the more you drive the more it costs.

"...That means your local gang-land thugs will find a way to avoid their registration plate being scanned (custom plate with obscure font). ..."

Great idea! Unfortunately, The Man seems to be slightly ahead of ./'s criminal geniuses on this one and is dishing out 3 license points and an (up to) £1000 fine for displaying plates that are non-standard. Your plan is a winner only if you wish to attract law-enforcement attention while lightening your wallet.

See Current Requirements on the Display of Number Plates for more info.

T&K.

Any such mod to license plates is illgeal in the UK and are likely to get you a very hefty fine. Here are the rules. You can't use the "reflective" plates that some people sell that are supposed to defeat speed cams. You can't even use fancy fonts any more - and you certainly can't use the old trick of dirtying up your plate "sorry officer, was driving through the dirt roads in the countryside yesterday" - nope, can't do that, it's illegal to even have a dirty plate

"You give a certificate to say the your car meets emmision standards, and that is all."

You obviously haven't met the MoT test here in the UK. A mandatory annual safety/environmental test. Costs £42.10 (USD$78.51) for a hour test. Tests nearly everything relating to safety/emissions on your car - and if you have modifications that breaks rules - off with it. Blue headlights? Illegal. Big phat sticker in windscreen? Illegal. Loud exhaust? Illegal. And so on. If you don't get your car MoT'ed, you can't get a tax disc without one. And without a tax disc, your car would be towed away and crushed. (see 2nd paragraph of Section 2)

For example, I've had my car failed and having a mandatory retest (free tho) just for having a nail in the tyre. My car also failed the test other times for more serious faults such as broken brake hose (broke in the garage), blown headlamp bulb, rusty inner NSF wing (my worst problem to date, cost £70 for welding), frayed handbrake cable, leaking rear suspension, also got warned for having worn brakes (still within the legal limit but needed changing), etc. I know of people who failed the test and needed to pay £1,000 to fix it all - but of course, I agree with all the above - safety is important!

Rules are continiously added on the MoT test - maybe one day there'll be a rule on the MoT test "You must carry a black box recorder for safety reasons" for example? (Tho new rules generally only applies on cars made after a specific date). So to make my point, there's a way (in the UK anyway) to be able to enforce new laws such as having to have a black box or GPS speed limit enforcements.

Not sure. Considering fuel tax makes up 6% of the govt's budget, I'd suspect some goes back to roads but most don't. I don't know I'm afraid - did a bit of googling, but there's a massive response of websites against fuel tax, so hard to find :) Here's a vaugely interesting PDF document about the effects of fuel tax on the general populace, you might want to read it or not. Not really revelant to this subject tho.

Oh yeah we do have vehicle excise duty (more generally called "road tax") in which we have to pay a lump sum per year (depending on engine size) and get a "tax disc" and display it on the car. I currently pay £110 per year (the minimum possible for old cars) but it goes up to £160 IIRC. The money raised from that goes back to the roads. Lorries et al pay much more but I don't know the figures for them. Anyway my point is that I think VED pays for the roads while fuel tax doesn't.

Not sure. Considering fuel tax makes up 6% of the govt's budget, I'd suspect some goes back to roads but most don't. I don't know I'm afraid - did a bit of googling, but there's a massive response of websites against fuel tax, so hard to find :) Here's a vaugely interesting PDF document about the effects of fuel tax on the general populace, you might want to read it or not. Not really revelant to this subject tho.

Oh yeah we do have vehicle excise duty (more generally called "road tax") in which we have to pay a lump sum per year (depending on engine size) and get a "tax disc" and display it on the car. I currently pay £110 per year (the minimum possible for old cars) but it goes up to £160 IIRC. The money raised from that goes back to the roads. Lorries et al pay much more but I don't know the figures for them. Anyway my point is that I think VED pays for the roads while fuel tax doesn't.

True about "gas tax" but also the UK has once a year Road Tax.

http://www.dvla.gov.uk/vehicles/taxation.htm

Plus...

Highest petrol(Gas), car prices and car crime in Europe!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/536787.stm
http://www.aaroadwatch.ie/eupetrolprices/

But we are the safest drivers! (See BBC link)

They don't need cameras to find out if your tax is out of date. The only place they need to look is Here.

In that case, someone needs to tell the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency

> in the UK you have to get your number plates printed at your local auto parts store and they don't care if you really own the number
Not any more. Although it's very recent, the regulation of manufacturing number plates has changed quite dramatically. Funnily enough, part of the reason for the new legislation includes "The introduction of cameras for enforcement purposes means that it is more important than ever for number plates to be legible". Part of the new regulations is that manufacturers must be licenced and must identify themselves on plates that they make. (Although how the filth will identify the manufacturer of an unmarked plate is beyond me...)