Five Mistakes to Avoid When Buying Replacement Number Plates
1) Poor Materials
As with all things in life, you get what you pay for. Cheap and tacky number plates are usually made from materials prone to snapping and bubbling. You should always ensure that your number plates are made from high quality acrylic plastic and road-legal reflective materials before committing to buy. This helps to ensure the legality of your plates and to protect against weathering and erosion caused by natural changes in temperature.
2) Incorrect Fonts and Spacing
It’s often tempting to fiddle with fonts and character spacing to try and form a more aesthetically pleasing appearance for your plate (usually to create the illusion of words or names). Road users who do this run the risk of failing their MOT and being fined by the police of up to £1,000! You should always ensure your number plates use a legal font and have only one space in accordance with your DVLA vehicle registration paperwork.
3) No Quality Assured Guarantee
Always use a company that takes pride in their products; if they don’t offer a 100%, quality assured, money-back guarantee for their number plates, it’s usually a sign to be wary of.
4) Illegal Side Badges and Bottom Lines
Number plates can look great with a side badge but it’s important to understand that only a select few designs are legal for road use. The same applies for the line of text along the bottom of the plate which, legally speaking, should only display the name (or logo) and post code of the number plate supplier.
5) No British Standard Mark
If your number plates comply with the law, there should be a small British Standard watermark printed on the bottom right hand side of the plate (BS AU145d). This is a legal requirement. Police in the UK have been known to pull over road users for not having the British Standard mark displayed on their licence plates. Once again, road users who drive with illegally displayed number plates run the risk of failing their MOT and being fined by the police of up to £1,000!
Conclusion
I hope this article has been useful, if you are in any doubt as to which number plate supplier to use, Replacement Number Plates can provide peace of mind with all of the above stipulations. Not only does Replacement Number Plates offer a money-back guarantee, if at any point within the ordering process your plates don’t conform to UK road specifications, you will be alerted, meaning no more worries or guessing games!