CK 13454

A reason why? Please explain.

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The reason for this is, that in Denmark, unlike most other countries, the license plates serve not only as vehicle id, but also as a sort of "legal document", proof that all taxes and insurances have been paid and that the car is in a roadworthy condition.

A camper/motorhome is typically used only in the summer months, so when you're done with the annual travel activities, you can retire the car for the winter and get a road tax refund.

But since the plates are proof that the car can be legally used, when you get road tax refunds, you also have to return the plates.

Once returned, the plates get destroyed, so the next time you want to return the car to the roads, you'll need a new set of plates. Why? Well, because the plates have that special role in Denmark (as legal documents of roadworthiness), it's extremely common to retire cars for the winter. Rather than storing thousands of plates every year, I guess it was decided, that it's easier to simply issue new plates when the vehicles are ready to return to the roads after winter.

This is, of course, also the reason why plate collectors are finding it extremely difficult to buy original danish plates: they are legally required to be returned for destruction whenever the car is taken off the streets, temporarily or not.

This is also the reason, that there's a special status available in the vehicle registry status field: "afmeldt uden aflevering af nummerplader", meaning that for some reason the plates did NOT get returned when the vehicle was retired. This is a way of telling police and other authorities "probably no foul play, but just be advised, that these plates were not returned so could potentially turn up illegally on another vehicle somewhere and if you see them, the vehicle must be pulled over"

By the way, I've found an even earlier registration for the car: it had plates number UV39883 for the 2002 season. And of course, it has been registered again for the 2020 season - the current plates are CS70246.

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Thank you so much for such a comprehensive answer.

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That sounds like a shitty system to me.
As far as I know New Zealand doesn't do that. We have an annual re-registration.

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Yeah, the most serious consequence was that it forced danish authorities to reset the whole system back to "AA" in 2012, due to running out of available numbers.

It also causes a lot of unnecessary trafic to pick up/return plates... and it's a waste of resources - both human and materialwise.

From a plate spotter's point of view, it's also very unfortunate, since it means no plates for collectors and makes it very difficult to catch neighbouring numbers, since many are only in use for a few months. Also it means there's 0% chance of spotting an old obscure plate on an abandoned vehicle in a barn or field.

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Of course the system also has advantages... after all, no country says "let's use a shitty system"

Perhaps the most decisive one is, that it severely reduces the risk of encountering unroadworthy (or otherwise illegal) vehicles in normal traffic, because if you don't pay your bills/insurances and/or your car is found to be unsafe, the plates are instantly removed. so from a safety point of view, this is a good system

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What happens if, for example inspection expires and you don't hand in the plates. Will the police come to your house and get them?
In Norway in said scenario if you don't pay insurance + tax, you'll get fined 150 kr each day until you turn in the plates or get the car insured. However even if the car has expired inspection you are able to pay tax and insurance, which has led to me occasionally spotting cars with expired inspection. I assume you are given the possibility so that you don't need to do the hassle of handing in your plates then retrieving them again if you intend to have the car off the road in a short time. The fine for having a car with plates without insurance however wasn't introduced until last year, which has reduced the amount of uninsured vehicles on the road. In my neighbourhood there used to be a E90 Corolla where inspection expired in June 2018, but was still getting driven around at least as of summer 2019 when I spotted it parked outside a superarket. Funnily enough I decided to look up the plate now and it actually passed inspection last month!

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I decided to look at the inspection status of cars I've uploaded, and you don't need to go far to find cars that do not have valid inspection. This one is from last week actually. http://platesmania.com/no/nomer15144516 Despite being a car as new as 2008, it hasn't seen the inspection office for over 5 years.

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I assume that in theory, the police would come and get the plates in such cases, but in real life, this probably rarely (if ever) happens, since the police have lots of other tasks to tend to... but more and more patrol cars get equipped with plate scanners, and if spotted by one of these, the car will get pulled over and the plates confiscated instantly (plus you'll get a hefty fine) so driving a car that has failed inspection/insurance not been paid etc. is llke playing russian roulette... with more and more bullets!

In all my years of car spotting, I think I've only ever spotted between 5 and 10 "illegal" ones, which is why I'm still slightly baffled by all the fake plates (danish as well as other nationalities) spotted in the Ukraine, in particular.

I'm surprised that the problem seems to exist in Norway as well - sounds like you were too? It should be in everybody's best interest to have as few such "illegal" cars on the streets as possible, since it greatly reduces the risk of accidents caused by failing brakes, exploding tires, insufficient lighting etc.

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Here it's not that uncommon actually. But here it's the Public Roads Administration (vegvesenet) that comes and takes your plates, and not the police. And I suppose they might have more time on their hands than the regular police. But it sounds like the process is the same here if you get caught driving without everything being OK. A while ago a friend bought a car and it turned out the previous owner had gotten stopped due to excessive noise and broken taillight, and was not allowed to drive the car until he repaired it and showed it at the inspection office. Instead of doing that he sold the car without telling about the problems. My friend drove around with it for about a week until he received a letter that stated his car was not allowed to use, and he had 3 days to hand in the plates before they would come to his house to remove the plates. And there's no way of knowing without being the owner if the car has been declared illegal, so my friend was clueless about it until he called the Public Roads Administration to ask what the hell was going on. He was lucky he was not stopped while driving or else he would have risked both fines and lose of license unless he could prove that he bought the car without knowing it was illegal.

Another story, last autumn I was out working on my car when one of my neighbours approached me and told me that he had parked his mk1 Forester outside his house and when he came back 15 minutes later the plates were gone and asked me if I had seen who had taken them. I had not seen who took them, but considering the car stood the entire winter without any plates and with the bonnet improperly closed I would assume a car from the Public Roads Administration had spotted him driving either with an expired inspection or insurance and decided to follow him. If it was a common thief that stole the plates for whatever reason, you'd think he would get some new plates within a few days.

I have no idea how many ''illegal'' plates I've caught, the site I usually check for car details before uploading doesn't show if it has valid inspection, but if I checked it for all my uploads I'm sure I'd get at least a few dozen. I've known it's a ''thing'', but it seems like it indeed is much more common than I thought. I've seen some incredibly bad cars on the roads over the years and it wouldn't surprise me if many did not have a valid inspection. I can't say that I respect people that keep on driving cars even after they fail inspection.

Here's an interesting one, also from my neigbourhood in Februrary. https://imgur.com/a/yVSKNpW Temporary one-day plate was issued for 30th November 2019. But if you look at the small text that says the actual plate of the car is ZE 56119, and it has not been inspected since 2009! Yet every time I walked past this car it was cleared of snow and was parked in a new spot. However I have never actually seen it driving around, so there's a possibility that the owner just likes to start the engine and keep the car clear for snow. But then again, why would anyone do that to a rusty 27 year old piece of shit Nissan Sunny that hasn't been road legal for 9 years?

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Re. the Nissan Sunny, that car model is now extremely rare and maybe the owner wants to restore it "someday when he wins the lottery"? As you said, it always got cleared of snow and had a test plate last november, so it must obviously still be drivable. Moving it around a bit is good for the engine and clearing it of snow prevents melting snow from causing rust.

An old friend of mine had a father who passed away at an early age andd left an old Volvo 244. My friend was too young to drive, but wanted to keep the car as a memory and get it restored later - I don't think it ever happened, but that was the plan.

A local example (I've mentioned before somewhere) is an old Saab 900 on german (Berlin) plates, that's been parked in a carport since I moved here in 2011. The paint is all matt and has a greenish mossy tint. I've never seen it drive or missing from its spot, but the tires are always inflated.

Just the other day I came across a car that had failed inspection so bad, it's probably the worst case I've ever seen. I didn't spot it, but I was looking for info on car model Toyota Carina E Commander, and a sales ad for this car came up. The owner was selling it for DKK 2500 saying that it had "just failed inspection, but the inspector was really mean", so I looked up the report... oh my! For a fun read, you can look up the latest (and last) inspection report on reg. VU41199 - brakes don't work, lights don't work, bonnet/hood doesn't shut, door hinges/locks rusted, chassis rusted, wings (skærme) rusted so bad that the inspector's comments say they are close to falling off and cause great "risk of injuries"

The blue Carina E looked nice on the one photo used on the sales ad, but underneath the skin it was rotten to the core!

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Here the Sunny isn't that exceptionally rare, obviously the vast majority of them are gone but I've definitely spotted a few the last year. I feel like if someone really wants a Sunny for whatever reason, it wouldn't be hard that hard to find one in much better condition. But of course, there is a possibility that there is sentimental value like in the case of your friend. I haven't gone past said parking lot, I think I'll go there later today to see if it's still there. Fun fact!: In Finland the generation of Sunny before this one is still ridiculously common, and most of the uploaded Sunny's to the gallery are of that generation. It's probably one of the most common, if not the most common 80's Japanese car there.

I haven't heard of said SAAB before, I guess owner wanted to import it to Denmark but something didn't work out (perhaps it needed repairs) and the owner thought that ''some day'' he will do it.

That Carina indeed seems very bad. And it's a good thing cars like that are taken off the road. It's not that untrue that cars might pass/fail based on the inspectors mood, but I'm sure even the most optimistic inspector would fail that one! A few months ago a guy I work with told me about how he was going to ''trick the system'' by taking his 1990 Carina II with brake failure and broken windshield to a small inspection shop in a rural area thinking that they would pass the car when the ones in the city wouldn't. Spoiler: it didn't pass. But later he actually got the brakes fixed and a new windshield and is still driving around in it to my knowledge.

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Today I met a Nissan Sunny exactly like the one I talked about in traffic, same colour and trim level and everything, the plate was very similar too (ZE 51***), I thought for a second it was back on the road.

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