Number plate offences (FOI)

Request

I would like to enquire if your police force have any details or data on the following:

A
How many drivers in your region have been stopped by police for driving with number plates that have been obscured by dirt or other similar substances? Is there any data over the period of 2015 - present?

B
How many drivers in your region have been stopped by police for driving with number plates which use an illegal font or styling which is not sanctioned by the DVLA? Is there any data over the period of 2015 - present?

C
How many drivers in your region have been stopped by police for driving without valid number plates? Is there any data over the period of 2015 - present?

D
Of the above questions, how much police time, resource, and budget was used to deal with the mentioned cases? Is there any data over the period of 2015 present?

Response

Jersey is not part of the UK and does not use the DVLA for vehicle registrations. Vehicles are registered with the Jersey Driver and Vehicle Standards department (DVS). Legislation on letter/number sizes and colouring of plates is similar, as is the requirement to keep the plate clean and visible. Typically, vehicle registration marks (VRM) in Jersey consist of the letter J followed by a series of numbers, currently up to six numbers. Low number plates e.g. ‘J543’ are sought after. There are no personalised number plates in Jersey although some drivers will pay to have a vehicle specific plate e.g. J911.

A
The States of Jersey Police have no records of any prosecutions for a number plate obscured by dirt. Since 2015 there have been 14 prosecutions for number plates that were broken, discoloured or obscured by other objects, such as a tow bar.

B
There have been no cases for illegal sized font on a VRM. There have been 36 prosecutions for having no working VRM light.

C
There have been two cases where the number plate did not match the vehicle it was attached to.

D
Jersey does not have any equivalent legislation to the UK whereby vehicles are required to undergo regular testing and have a valid MOT certificate after reaching three years of age. The above offences were all part of a series of Construction and Use offences discovered on a vehicle and were not dealt with in isolation. It is not possible, therefore to extract the time taken to deal with or cost each individual offence. That information is not held.