60 cars a week towed away in DVLA road tax crackdown

Published on Thursday 21 August 2008 10:24

ALMOST 60 cars a week are being towed away or clamped in Edinburgh as part of a crackdown on untaxed vehicles.

The total number of vehicles targeted has risen by over a quarter in the last year, with the DVLA catching a total of 3061 tax cheats in the last 12 months.

Increased patrols of wardens armed with the technology which instantly identifies vehicles without a valid tax disc is being credited for the rise.

Vehicle owners have 24 hours to pay an 80 release fee and any outstanding road tax, before the car is impounded and then sold or crushed after a further seven days.

Nearly 80 per cent of the 1050 vehicles towed away in the Capital last year were crushed. Most of these had either been abandoned or their owners had thought it wasn't worth paying to get the car released.

Next year's haul is likely to be even bigger with a greater emphasis on foreign-registered vehicles, as well as the introduction of new legislative powers in the autumn which allow the DVLA into more areas such as public car parks.

DVLA officials today insisted the crackdown was helping to make the roads a safer place for everyone on them by removing dangerous vehicles but some motoring groups raised concerns about the reliability of the DVLA databases. Bethan Beasley, of the DVLA's wheel clamping unit, said: "The result of this crackdown is great news for road safety in Edinburgh.

"Since car tax can only be purchased with a valid MOT and insurance certificate, it reduces the number of potentially dangerous untaxed, uninsured and unroadworthy vehicles on the road.

"This helps to make the roads a safer place for everyone. Our figures show that eight out of ten cars impounded for being untaxed are also without insurance."

NCP Services, the DVLA's contractor in Edinburgh, has wardens patrolling the city's streets in vans equipped with automatic number-plate recognition technology.

Each van is loaded with four cameras, which can read number plates at up to 20 miles per hour, and check them against the DVLA database.

Bruce Young, Lothian and Borders co-ordinator of the Association of British Drivers, said he had concerns.

Mr Young said: "From a driver's perspective, the number of uninsured drivers or those without licences on the roads is probably of more concern.

"I do have concerns that the DVLA records are notoriously unreliable, there have been a number of cases where cars have been destroyed because of mistakes in the DVLA database or by its on-street enforcers."