Oh, this old chestnut
I have a fully-legal, short, pressed plate on the front:
On a trip to Scotland over the New Year I got stopped for having an 'illegal' front plate (metal, pressed, reflective with proper size/spacing and font) and heard many arguments from the officer in question as to why he was right, but in the end he could argue and setted on only one point - no post code of plate manufacturer on the plate. He even had to get some sort of rule guide book out to confirm the details.
Anyway, here is what the UK government has to say on this matter (
https://www.gov.uk/displaying-number-plates/rules-number-plates):
Your number plates should:
- be made from a reflective material
- display black characters on a white background (front plate)
- display black characters on a yellow background (rear plate)
- not have a background pattern
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vehicle-registration-numbers-and-number-plates
- Characters must be 79mm tall
- Characters (except the number 1 or letter I) must be 50mm wide
- The character stroke (the thickness of the black print) must be 14mm
- The space between characters must be 11mm
- The space between the age identifier and the random letters must be 33mm
- The margins at the top, bottom and side of the plate must be 11mm
- Vertical space between the age identifier and the random numbers must be 19mm
Armed with that, I spoke to unit67 from ebay (
http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/unit67) and called them to get my specific size (~400mm x ~110mm) done for the front with correct spacing, font, letter size, spacing, BS and post code stamps. I'd really like to see me get bothered for my plate again
As far as going to less than 400mm, would depend on whether you have a '1' in the plate itself and if the text can be 11mm or more from the side.
