There are few things more annoying than getting a parking ticket.
One of them is getting a parking ticket from somewhere 200 miles away, while your car is sitting outside your house behaving impeccably.
That was the thought behind an FoI I sent to the DVLA on cloned number plates.
The figures were worse than I expected.
Last year, 11,394 drivers told the DVLA their registration had been copied. That is almost 1,000 a month, up 9% in a year and 54% higher than in 2020.
For the people caught up in it, this can mean parking tickets, speeding fines and other offences arriving for places they have never been.
The obvious question was why it is still so easy to get fake plates.
The AA warned that plates can still be bought online without proper proof of ownership. Criminals are believed to be able to pick them up for as little as £30.
Use one and the fine can be as little as £100. That is less a deterrent than a modest business expense.
Police also fear cloned plates are being used by organised gangs to dodge number plate recognition cameras and hide where they have been.
The story ran as an exclusive in the Sunday Mirror on 19th April 2026.
It came from a simple FoI, but it had the things a national paper needs: innocent victims, a rising trend, a loophole, and a whiff of official failure.
If you want FoI ideas with the right plates to pass inspection and hit the press, get in touch.
