Before you rush out and buy a personalised number plate for your vehicle, there are some legal considerations you should know about. If you make a mistake when choosing your private reg plate, you could risk a big fine and get a failed MOT.
Here are some common mistakes you should never make when choosing a personalised private plate:
Don’t Use the Wrong Font for Your Private Plate
There are rules and regulations you’ll have to adhere to when it comes to how your personalised number plate is formatted. If you find a company that tells you they have several fonts for you to choose from when designing your custom reg plate, don’t walk away from that company, run! In the UK, the only font that is used on all legal plates is called the Charles Wright font.
Don’t Use the Wrong Background or Colour
In order to be legal in the UK, number plates used on the front of vehicles must have a white background and plates used on the back of vehicles must have a yellow background. Backgrounds are considered illegal when they don’t feature a plain colour or when they have stickers on them that make it difficult to read the plate characters.
Don’t Use a Flag That’s Illegal
You cannot have just any old flag on your custom reg plate because there are laws that govern the types of flags allowed on plates. The only flags that you can have on a custom plate are those of the UK, EU, and British nations. This means you cannot show what football club you’re a fan of by displaying its flag on your plate. You have to play by the rules unless of course, you’d prefer paying a big fine!
Don’t Use the Wrong Spacing
The number plate spacing rules for plates registered prior to January 1, 1973 and after Sept 1, 2001, are the same. All vehicles registered within these time-frames are legally required to leave 11 millimetres between each character and 33 millimetres between the age identifier/memory tag.
For vehicles registered prior to Sept 1 but after Jan 1, 1973, the spacing rule is different. These vehicles must have plates with 13 millimetres of space between each character and 38 millimetres of space between the age identifier/memory tag.