whats the punishment if your caught with a smaller than legal plate? take it off and present bike with the correct one fitted or are they more severe than that ?

£60 non endorsable ticket. Photo taken of plate on bike and reported to dvla. If caught a second time dvla may withdraw your plate and put your bike on a 'Q'.
Or you might get a cop willing to use discretion and verbally advise you......

£60 is a bit harsh

q plate searched on google is a vehicle of unidientified origin - how or why can a copper say that about a bike if only the plate isnt legal but the reg is? sorry if this is a stupid quesiton

It's not a police thing, it's dvla's rules. It's all about road safety. A small plate and/oron one line can't be read by bystanders as you speed by and knock someone over! The main reason is that the ANPR cameras struggle with them.
If they can't read them then they don't generate any cash.
Have a search on the MCN website I'm sure there was an article on bikes with small plates being put on 'Q' plates

If your not stupid with the size of the plate then you probably won't get nicked, I saw one the size of a stamp once I felt like nicking the t**t myself.

Andy

Yes some people do over do it a bit. I have seen one that was so small that I still could not read it 3 foot away .

The std plate does look ugly on most bikes. I use a slighty smaller one and have had no probs even after a couple of pulls for speeding.

Single line plates are a one to avoid IMO as they are deffo not legal, on a bike, and stand out like a sore thumb to the Cops. The one thing the road Cops do like to see is riders using a bit of common sense IE good road gear, etc.

The fine is one thing but a none legal plate makes your bike not legal for insurance and they could use that against you if they wanted to.

There is also one other point not touched upon yet. If your number plate is too small for speed cameras to read, then technically you can be prosecuted for attempting to pervert the course of justice. This can carry imprisonment as a sentence.

I agree. DVLA actually 'own' your registration number and have the power to withdraw it if the see fit. The Police can do thsi on DVLA's behalf at the roadside if they wanted to, leaving you to get your 'unregistered' bike home without riding it. If that were to happen you would have to apply to re-register your bike and could well end up with a Q plate unfortunately (Q plates are not solely reserved for questionable manufacturing years or home built specials). If they really wanted to be arsey they could withdraw the right to register the bike completely, leaving you with an expensive track day bike only

It has never come to this point YET to my knowledge but there is always a first time. Normally you would get either a fixed penalty ticket (non endorsable) or a VDRS form, which requires you to get it fixed and take the bike to an MOT station to inspect. You pay for a full MOT and then send back the stamped form to the police within the specified time. If you send it back in time that is the end of it (although it is recorded) but if you don't then you'll get a court summons.

The biggest drawback with small number plates is that it gives the Police a great excuse to stop you and take a good look at your bike. This means that you potentially stand to get done for a few more offences such as loud exhaust, poor tyres, etc etc etc If you fail the 'attitude test' then they can waste a great deal of your time finding small faults and generally ruining your day:)

Stick to a 'reasonably' sized plate and the liklihood of getting pulled is much much less. Anything less than 7" x 5" is asking for trouble.

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"Racing is life. Everything before and after is just waiting".

Move to Qatar, my standard number plate is actually smaller than the bracket on the bike

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Wear the fox hat

When I fell victim to some twat with my (cloned ) plate on his car driving up a bus lane in Basingstoke (I've never been there ) I had to proove to the Local Council that my Reg was for a Mazda and not for the Clio that some scrote was photgraphed in. Justice eh Anyway, I digress. Since said scrote had 'my' plate on his car, he obviously wasn't insured and was guilty of the very serious offence of perverting the course of..... etc, etc, I phoned the Police Force that covered that area to report the crime. They weren't interested and told me that reg. numbers were a DVLA matter. Not when it became perverting ....etc, I argued when I got put through to an actual Copper, but again, they were unwilling to act on my report despite me copying all the documents to them

Moral of the story is, cloned plates are acceptable, ones not conforming to size regs. are not

So Monkeyboy, I've got a full size copy of your reg. plate on my X1

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If your dreams don't scare you, they are not big enough.

I got stopped on sunday £30 fine. Number plate is 9" by 3" single line. Think the PC didnt like the way i pulled out of a give way junction and give it a few beans after my mate on a SV

got stopped a few years back with a 2 line small numberplate. The friendly officer got out his tap measure and gave me a £30 fine on the spot and told me if I get caught again I will have to get a Q plate. He also mentioned that the exhaust was not road legal (not difficult to spot, was stamped on the pipe) but said he let me get away with it

If you wanted to be really pedantic about it, the law actually gives minimum sizes for the letters/numbers on your licence plate in addition to plate sizes generally.

You see loads of cars driving around with poncy 'personal' plates that are clearly illegal due to incorrect spacing or making numbers look like letters etc so that the scrote driving can have his 'PEN1S' number plate read correctly, but for some obscure reason the police don't seem to target these like they do bikes

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"Racing is life. Everything before and after is just waiting".

Unfortunately when police chiefs have the same opinion as the North Wales Chief we are going to be targeted. I spoke to two motorcycle cops(decent lads) at the Ponderosa Cafe. They informed us of a speed trap on the road we were going to take and its exact location, sure enough as we exited the bends there it was, so glad we sat at there table(no other spaces available) They also told us of their chiefs attitude towards bikers. As most bikers nowadays are older and have more disposable income "Target them" He ought to take time to have a word with the local business owners in Betws-y-Coed and ask their opinions on bikers. They had a big sign out after the Foot and Mouth outbreak thanking all the bikers as they were the ones that kept them going when times were tough and tourism virtually nil.

Last time I was in North Wales on a bike every pub had a big sign outside - "NO BIKERS" That was 25 years ago, and I've not been back since

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Wear the fox hat