Please excuse me if I’ve missed something here, but perhaps someone could give me me an answer regarding the imminent abolishment of tax discs for vehicles.

If I own a particular vehicle, but can’t afford to tax it, insure it and MOT it, what’s to stop me from keeping a lookout for an identical, legal vehicle being used on the road, making a note of the registration number of that vehicle, buying a set of number plates and fitting them to my vehicle? There would then be two identical vehicles on the road, with no tax discs, but only one of them would be taxed.

Provided that the owner of the legal vehicle carries on taxing, insuring and MOT’ing his vehicle, my ‘illegal’ vehicle would pass all the police and ANPR checks as completely above board, as long as I ‘SORN’d’ my ‘illegal’ vehicle, and I didn’t violate any parking or speeding restrictions, which of course might highlight the scam.

I think that I could get away with living off the back of someone else’s registration number for years, provided that I behaved myself, drove reasonably sensibly, and avoided accidents. I can’t remember the last time that I was pulled over and asked to show my documents, so the thought of saving the cost of the road fund licence, insurance and MOT charges each year against the cost of a set of registration plates every now and again seems quite tempting.... and by the way, after 50 years in the motor trade, I know several places that sell number plates with no questions asked, and no V5 needed.

Clive Harrison, Quarhill Close, Over Norton, Chipping Norton

Today’s letters


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