23/06/2026: LBC "Britain's roads are a criminal's playground"

It’s time to take the mask off the rogue drivers and restore some integrity to our roads, writes Chairman of the British Number Plate Manufacturers Association Michael Flanagan

This January, the government took a huge step forward by announcing its first Road Safety Strategy in more than a decade.

The announcement is great news. It promises to transform the UK’s approach to road travel and to prevent avoidable accidents every day. However, any road safety strategy is not fit for purpose unless it prioritises addressing a glaring hole in our national security: the prevalence of "ghost”, cloned and stealth number plates.

Most people see a number plate as little more than some plastic on the front and back of the car. But for the criminal element on our roads, they have become a high-tech mask. Right now, the UK’s Automatic Number Plate Recognition network is being systematically blinded. By the end of 2024, these cameras were expected to read 100 million plates a day. Yet at least one million of those reads are currently inaccurate.

Criminals can openly buy plates online that use infrared-invisible characters or 3D "ghost" and stealth modifications designed specifically to evade detection. To make matters worse, thousands of motorists each year discover that their perfectly legitimate plates have been copied and used to mask identities, allowing criminals to avoid fines or, in the worst cases, commit serious crimes.

This is why BNMA recently submitted evidence to the Transport Select Committee’s inquiry on the Road Safety Strategy. Our message to MPs is simple. Any serious conversation about road safety will be severely hampered as long as over a million "ghosts" continue to haunt our roads every single day.

In our evidence, we highlighted a significant blind spot: the UK and Ireland are the only countries in Europe without security features or end-to-end traceability across our number plate supply chains. We are an outlier, and the criminals know it.

The government’s new strategy aims to slash road deaths by 65% by 2035. It’s an achievable goal, but its success depends on our ability to identify and prevent offenders from evading capture. When a driver knows they can’t be tracked, they drive with impunity.

There are already several solutions. The ANPR Independent Advisory Group produced a report all the way back in July 2020 that made nine recommendations that, if adopted, would transform our roads. These include increased penalties and prosecution routes for bad actors and several measures to securitise supply chains in the production of number plates.

Crucially, the first recommendation is to include stronger security features in plates. The BNMA has already developed a "smart" number plate featuring laser watermarking, holographic QR codes, and tamper-evident RFID tags. These essential tools would allow the police to authenticate a plate in seconds. The government must adopt all nine of the report’s recommendations as a matter of urgency.

I commend Ministers for taking the first step of recognising illegal plates as a growing issue. However, drastic action is necessary to address the situation. We need to move away from the current, ineffective register of suppliers and introduce a formal, audited licensing system. If the government is serious about saving lives, it’s time to take the mask off the rogue drivers and restore some integrity to our roads.

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Michael Flanagan is Chairman of the British Number Plate Manufacturers Association (BNMA).

With thanks to: https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/britains-roads-criminals-playground-number-plate-opinion-5HjdbyW_2/