When you buy a new car, the number plate of the car is definitely is one of the greatest attractions of the car owner. You are also allowed to use your own personalised number plates on your car. Your car could sport a design number plate also. But, before making that Design Number Plates for your car, you should know the relevant regulations regarding these number plates. In case, your design number plate does not conform to these regulations, you might get fined by the police and in the worst case, the police could even seize the number plate of your car. In this article, we will give in detail the present legal position regarding car number plates in Great Britain.

Number plates of any vehicle that is running on the roads of Great Britain must be as per The Road Vehicles Regulation, 2001. This regulation states that registration mark of any vehicle must belong to the owner of the vehicle and this registration number has to be displayed on acrylic number plates that would be fixed on the vehicle. The lettering of these number plates should be black on white for front number plate while it would be black on yellow plate for the rear number plate. These number plates should conform to the relevant British standards and only mandatory fonts are to be used for lettering of these number plates. At present, the mandatory font that is to be used is BS AU 145d. The registration number should be written on these number plates with letterings and spacing should be as per the specification stated in the above-mentioned regulation. Nobody is allowed to alter, rearrange or misrepresent any letter or number on the vehicle number plate.

If the car is fitted with number plate after 1st September 2001, then each character of the number plate must have a height of 79 mm and a width of 50 mm. This regulation will not be applicable for the figure '1' and the letter 'I'. The space between each character should be 11 mm and the space between groups of characters must be 33 mm. Letters and numbers must remain in groups as stated in the certificate of entitlement for the vehicle. Car number plate must contain the name or trademark of the manufacture or the component supplier along with the postal code of the supplier of the number plate.

The number plate might contain a non-reflective border along with Euro number and national identification number in case the vehicle is not registered in Great Britain.

Any infringement of any of the above rules might attract fines up to an amount of ?1,000 or your right to display the car number plate could be taken away. The vehicle would fail in a MOT in case the vehicle bears a non-standard number plate.

Therefore, you make design number plate for your vehicle, you should keep these regulations in mind to avoid harassment from the police authorities