Have you ever seen this? You’re driving along and notice an oncoming car’s front plate is missing. As you drive past, you realise it isn’t missing at all – it’s inside the car on the dashboard. It may have been difficult to read or partially obscured by the outer parts of the window.
Your vehicle’s number plates display your unique vehicle registration number (VRN) and must conform to very strict rules. Regulations don’t just control the technical specifications of your plates; they also control where and how they should be fixed to the vehicle.
Can you put your plates inside your vehicle?
The most likely answer is “no” – you cannot legally put your front plate inside your vehicle on the dashboard. The Road Vehicles (Display of Registration Marks) Regulations 2001 tell us that a front number plate must be positioned at the front of the vehicle in a vertical position.
Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2001/561/regulation/6
- This regulation applies to vehicles, other than works trucks, road rollers and agricultural machines, first registered on or after the relevant date.
- Except as provided in paragraph (5), a registration plate must be fixed on the front of the vehicle in the manner required by paragraph (3).
- This paragraph requires the plate to be fixed—
- vertically or, where that is not reasonably practicable, in a position as close to the vertical as is reasonably practicable,
- in such a position that in normal daylight the characters of the registration mark are easily distinguishable from every part of a relevant area having the diagonal length specified in paragraph (4).
The “relevant date” in this case refers to 1st October 1938 for Great Britain, and 1st January 1948 for Northern Ireland.
According to the above rules, your vehicle’s front plate must be positioned on the front of the vehicle. There are 2 things to note here:
- “On” the vehicle would likely be interpreted by any reasonable person to mean on the outside, rather than inside.
- “Front of the vehicle” is difficult to misinterpret – for most vehicles, the dashboard & windscreen aren’t at the front of the vehicle.
Furthermore, the rules make it clear that a front plate must be positioned vertically where possible. If your vehicle has a front plate mount, that is the most appropriate position for the plate. You should not choose a less appropriate position, for example, inside the vehicle.
Your plates must be easily readable
In addition to the rules above, there are other rules for number plates that control the readability of your registration marks. Even if it were not a requirement to place the plate vertically at the front of the vehicle, regulation 11 (2) says the following:
A registration plate must not be treated in any other way which renders the characters of the registration mark less easily distinguishable to the eye or which would prevent or impair the making of a true photographic image of the plate through the medium of camera and film or any other device.
Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2001/561/regulation/11
Regulation 11 makes it clear that you cannot make it more difficult to read the registration mark by eye, camera, or any other device. Placing the plate behind the windscreen can obscure the marks in the following ways:
- Glare from the sun (or night-time lighting) can block visibility.
- At night the characters may be very difficult to see by eye.
- The outer parts of a windscreen are often blacked out or have painted frits (black dots), which can partially block the characters.
Summary
It is unlikely that you can legally place your front plate on your dashboard. Your front plate must be displayed at the front of the vehicle, in as vertical a position as possible. If a plate mounting position is available, it is not appropriate for that mounting point to be ignored in favour of a less appropriate position.
If no mounting point is available, then drilling the plates and screwing them into the bumper is more appropriate than putting the plate behind the windscreen where it can be blocked by glare or the outer parts of the windscreen.
Regulations do specify the plate should be fixed on the vehicle, rather than inside the vehicle.
Additionally, the regulations tell us that making the registration marks less easily readable by eye, camera, or other device, is not allowed.