By The Letter Of The Law

A personalised numberplate, I think, says something about your priorities if not your personality and neither message is likely to be very flattering. I have thought about this entry long and hard and decided to go ahead with restrained language. My dilemma is this; I am enraged not so much by personalised numberplates as such, which can be regarded with amused tolerance, but illegally formatted examples. These, I think, utter the message rather more loudly and less flatteringly. I know several people with (properly formatted) personalised plates and they are, undeniably, lovely people. I can only say that if I had some spare money, I would not be giving it to DVLA for the motorised equivalent of an amuse-bouche.

The illegally formatted plates are another matter. A car number plate is a functional item, not a toy or a tattoo. Number Plate Recognition is a widespread and useful tool at large in the country today. At Heathrow's T5 they have harnessed the technology via a touchscreen so that you can find your car when, inevitably after two hazy weeks in the Caribbean, you have forgotten where you put it. I doubt that I would need this assistance myself but it is a good idea. For this reason and many others of greater legal significance, the many fonts, spacings and strategic placing and colouring of rivets are completely unacceptable. They say, frankly, TOS 5 A or, more up to date, AT 05 SER. A car is a tool not an emblem and its numberplate is not a decoration. The legal position is widely known and the plates to which  I object are intentionally in breach of that. Transgressors should expect to feel the full force of the law.