Police are clamping down on fancy number plates - including those in italics - with on-the-spot fines for drivers.

They are illegal and officers believe some motorists may deliberately use them to avoid detection on speed cameras.

The crackdown is starting in the Witney police traffic area, covering Witney, Carterton, Abingdon, Faringdon, Didcot and Wallingford as well as the rural areas of south and west Oxfordshire.

Fixed penalty fines of £20 will be dished out to offenders.

Pc Matt Box said: "Drivers who fit these registration plates are breaking the law." - often for the sake of vanity.

"The registration plate is often our best chance of identifying the driver if they commit a motoring offence or crime. If we can't read the index number, we have less chance of success."

Drivers can buy custom-made plates from garages and motorists' centres in fancy lettering. But, while there is no law against their manufacture, it is illegal to fit them for the road, says police media manager Ms Janet Malcolmson.

"It has become very common. It is very difficult, though, for speed cameras to pick them up and perhaps that is why some drivers fit them," she said.

The size and style of lettering is governed by the 1971 Road Vehicle Registration and Licensing Regulations.

Number plates should be easily recognisable at a minimum distance of 67.5 feet and lettering should be at least three and a quarter inches tall. No italics or fancy type is allowed and the spacing between letters is also regulated, said Ms Malcolmson. Motorists should be warned, she added, that number plates obscured by dirt and mud are also illegal.

Motorists can get a wide range of customised show plates, made specially at accessory shops.

Paul Haines, assistant manager at the Motorists Discount Centre in Cowley, said: some of the most unusual requests come from lorry drivers.

"They want their own name, nickname or girlfriend's name. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as it goes in the cab," he said.

"We do a business in show plates, because that's what they are. You can get a wide range of designs but we always inform customers that they are only to be fitted off road. It's not in our interests to do otherwise."

The legal number plate has to have letters and digits of a certain thickness and there has to be a set spacing, says Sgt Tim Sweetman, of Witney traffic police.

Sgt Tim Sweetman, of Witney traffic police, said: "Motorists can display fancy plates, as long as the correct plates are also in place, both at the front and rear of the vehicle."

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