British motorists driving outside the UK must now remove old-style GB stickers or cover them up.
"Instead they should display a UK sticker or have the UK identifier on their number plate.
The UK government guidance has been in place since Tuesday 28 September.
“It might only be a matter of replacing two letters, but this is a significant change for drivers who in normal times take their cars outside the UK,” said RAC spokesman Rod Dennis.
The new rules state that any driver with a GB sticker on their car now needs to replace it with a new UK one if they are taking their vehicle abroad."
Worth knowing about if you intend driving abroad in the future. Halfords warned that drivers who failed to display their UK badges could be refused entry to some countries.
No problem if you are not intending to drive the vehicle abroad. If you do then according to this news item you might be refused entry to some countries which could be inconvenient. No problem for me
– I don’t even have a passport!
Annoying though that I have to pay on my insurance for cover to travel abroad. The same as not being married so no ‘spouse’ but still have to pay as if I was so a ‘spouse’ would be covered to drive my car. The risk must be less so why should I have to pay for this on my premium? I’ve queried both but there’s no way of avoiding this, it’s part of the basic cover.
Luckily it’s a town name and not an area as ‘New South Wales’, Australia in your post. I just saw the word ‘Wales’ and that name of the town in Wales UK sprang to mind!
I reckon the problem in the UK and elsewhere, is that there are too many rules and regulations, we are inundated with them in everything, they also always seem to be made as difficult as possible for ‘ordinary mortals’ to understand.
I thought car registration was UK wide not registered by the local council. Here cars are registered by the state government and they manage to write a lot more on the plate. It shouldn’t be too hard to stamp United Kingdom along the bottom of the number plate. , Surely British ingenuity could fit 13 letters on a number plate?
I bought a bike after cancer treatment to try and get to a reasonable fitness level, forgot I was in my late fifties doing stuff best suited for the young ones, came off, smashed my knee and broke a rib.
Yes, you are correct in what you say. At first I was overlooking the fact you have states there and vehicles are registered to those rather than the country as here in the UK. Then I just made a joke out of it using the name of that Welsh town.
British ingenuity could do many things but the regulations prevent anything other than very few details to be put on numbers plates. I believe that is limited to the name of company supplying the number plates and the postcode, plus what used to be an option of the EU logo. Even the size of the letters, typeface and colour are covered by legislation, with a fine if not adhered to.
Regulations and laws in the UK are so strict that a motorist here almost has to be qualified in motoring law, to understand it all.
Just goes to show how petty minded the continentals actually are. I wonder if we refused any say grey cars from entering the UK what they would say about that. The mentality of these EU officials is beyond belief . Talk about our politicians the French especially take the biscuit.
Cars have to display the company that put the number plates on the vehicle even if having had an accident the repairers name still goes on
The plates come with the car. We only replace plates if they are damaged, stolen or lost. You just take the plates to a ServiceNSW centre and they give you a new set from the top of a pile and change the rego papers, I think the cost is about $45 (22 pounds). If you want a set with the same style and number you have to order them but the cost is the same. My last set of plates lasted over 20 years, in fact probably didn’t need changing but they were getting a bit scruffy and faded.
The plates used to be made in prisons, pressed out of steel but I don’t know if that is still the case, these days they are made of aluminium. Only the government makes plates, rather than any odd bod off the street.
I can’t understand why you people are so worried about the UK/GB thing it seems trivial to me. I have driven a Malaysian car across the Thai border and there were all sorts of rules and regs to satisfy including getting the plate’s number written in Thai but it wasn’t that hard. I paid 30 ringgit for someone to fill out all the forms for me, just having to change a sticker seems a storm in a teacup.
You can have the GB on the number plate, but if that came with a EU circle of stars, then as of the start of this year, it also required a separate GB sticker, as we are no longer a member of the EU.
Also this change was instigated by the UK government, but without informing the UK population. The information that this change was imminent came from the United Nations, who told us they had received notification form the UK.
In some European countries, a UK sticker will be needed no matter what is on your number plate. I know both Spain & Gibraltar will require a sticker.
The following number plates are currently legal. But will become not legal to drive on abroad under the new regulations. Also from what I understand, it will not be legal to display both GB & UK stickers.
