The scum look for cars, similar to their recent thefts, on the internet. I know of someone who got more than just a speeding ticket (in excess of 70mph in a 30mph restricted zone). About 150 miles away (Liverpool) and about two o’clock in the morning.

Same car model, same colour, same numberplate. His had recently been advertised by an internet car seller who showed the registration plate in the pics.🙁

He was expected to prove his innocence, but I would think the ANPR records should sort out a problem, like that, quite quickly.

Your problem seems to be of a local nature. Just one more reason why dash cams are a good investment?

And me, I had a speeding ticket through the post but because of the speed recorded (107 mph) it was a summons to attend court in Scotland. I was living in Kent and I had to provide evidence that my vintage motorcycle was under restoration and where I was on the day but they accepted my motorcycle was incapable of the speed involved. It transpires that the offending motorcycle was a foreign registration (Swedish) the same registration as my very old bike.

That’s one reason you often see scrap cars on transporters going to a scrap yard have part of the number plate obscured do they can’t be cloned apparently

Rather depends on your mileage and the memory size. It is not foolproof in that it doesn’t do anything while parked and switched off, but every little helps. Mine is continuous when the ignition switch is turned on, so nothing is left out. And the rear camera imitates the front one, so they will tie in with each other. Both record GPS, etc.

I’ve only driven about six thousand miles in my car this year. I just let the dash cam roll around so it likely takes months. Memory use can easily be reduced – but with reduced picture quality – I don’t bother with that either. I sometimes change the memory card and that will keep me going for months before over-writing the old data.

I asked a police civilian investigating officer about this a bit back and he said that while a clip from a dashcam can be useful in the case of an accident, the ease with which videos can be edited today makes any video evidence without a timecode track to show where it has been edited (or not) of little use if a case comes to court.

Thinking about it, I think it would be perfectly possible to superimpose a time of your choice on the footage and say it was recorded then for example.

Most of us do! One thing I learned the hard way is being expert in one field did not make me good at everything else. A relative served in the Royal Navy, travelled the world, did well in challenging situations and was regularly promoted. When his time was up, bursting with confidence and full of contempt for civvie ways, he left the Navy to make his fortune. 18 months and 3 jobs later he had a nervous breakdown : now he drinks, relies 110% on his wife, and is lucky not to be homeless. I blame military virtues – they put servicemen and women into a well-structured team, with clear leadership and short-term objectives, minimised individual responsibility, justified pride, and positive purpose. A lot of effort is put into training, obeying orders, building confidence, acting quickly, and managing work/rest to maintain peak performance. Unfortunately civilian life often inverts all this: unclear objectives, low status jobs, bad managers, high responsibility, unachievable targets, weak teaming, indifferent training and maybe the job is unpopular as well.

Similar in civilian life: brash confident Englishmen turn into whinging poms in Australia, city folk hate the country, redundant coal-miners don't do well in offices, etc etc etc. Truth is, most people are foolish outside their normal range of experience, hence jokes about Nerds not having Girlfriends!

Crime is the same; honest folk are unlikely to understand criminal techniques and are more likely to come into contact with petty rather than organised crime. We are Babe's in the Wood! It's impossible to protect oneself entirely against crime, but much of it is defeating by taking simple alert precautions. On the internet or when the phone rings, slow down, have a suspicious think, and double-check.

But no amount of clever precautions help when the crime is something like a cloned number plate. Though the effects are painful, Harry isn't the major victim – he's mere collateral damage, an accidental bystander! The car carrying his registration has been stolen from someone, and the thieves are uninsured, possibly disqualified and unlicensed. Likely the clone car is wanted for anti-social purposes, like drug-dealing or burglary. Maybe it will get torched to destroy forensics after the crime in a kiddies playground, costing public money putting the fire out, removing the remains, and fixing the damaged playdround. Harry only gets whacked with parking and speeding fines, everyone else's insurance goes up slightly, but the real pain surrounds the stolen car.

One of my colleagues was married to a senior policeman, second-in-command of a Regional Crime Squad. One evening while he was watching TV, a gang lifted his brand new BMW off his front drive, over a pair of locked gates, and on to a low-loader fitted with a crane. Probably stolen to order and shipped abroad. Maybe someone in the dealership notified the gang, maybe the gang were watching the garage and followed him home. Either way they got clean away with it…

Dave

If they are logged by ANPR, no. Stationary traffic offences are often processed by ‘’them wot dunt ave a clue’’.

They only get caught out when the police actually eyeball them – and pull them over on suspicion of something. Then they likely abandon the vehicle and do a runner.

Copy all you have to your MP and ask him/her to investigate fully and get back to you. I tend never to give up on these things, and I've had some interesting apology letters from a few chiefs in high places.

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Some years ago I ran a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, and one day I received a letter from the company which oversaw parking at Clackett Lane service area on M25 informing me that I'd overstayed my welcome in their car park and please to pay the penalty incurred within so many days. There was a photo. in the letter showing a scruffy Ford car with the same registration mark as my bike. I wrote back asking when the H-D Motor Company had started fixing Ford badges to the (non-existent) bonnets of their motorcycles, and I heard no more from them. I reported it to the police, but they showed no interest in the matter. I was prepared to change the registration mark if anymore similar issues arose, but they never did, and eventually I sold the machine. ( didn't want to, but tendonitis and arthritis insisted that I did.)

Use dashcam footage to identify similar vehicles to your one.

Fire up the 3D printer to clone the number-plate (with sockets for the ceramic magnets)

Drive down the tollway with impunity as somebody else is going to cop the bill.

It's actually much quicker and cheaper to vacuum form the new plates from ABS

Not teaching people how to break the law, my 6×4 trailer (Vic, Australia) only requires the towing vehicle registration to be displayed so rather than paint it on I realised how easy it is to make a numberplate.

* Danny M *