Picture a parking fine landing on your doormat for a street you have never driven down, or a speeding notice from a town you have never visited. For a growing number of drivers across Essex, Hertfordshire and North London, that is exactly what is happening — and it starts with the two plates bolted to your car.
Plate theft is climbing fast
DVLA figures obtained by Churchill Motor Insurance show 7,381 number plates were stolen in the UK in 2025, up 30% on the year before and more than double the 3,376 taken in 2021. Cloning — where a criminal copies your registration onto another car — has risen 53% since 2021.
Why thieves want your registration
A stolen or cloned plate lets a criminal dodge speed cameras, congestion and clean air charges, and parking fines — all of which then land on you. A BBC investigation found London councils cancelled tens of thousands of penalty charges linked to cloned vehicles, with one borough tracing nearly 2% of its parking tickets to cloned cars.
The link to car theft most people miss
There is a darker side. Thieves often clone a plate from a car identical to one they have just stolen, so the stolen vehicle can be driven, sold or shipped without raising a flag. If your make, model and colour are common on the driveways of your street, your registration is worth copying.
The cheap fix — and its honest limit
Protecting the plates themselves is genuinely cheap. A set of tamper-resistant screws costs a few pounds and makes a plate far harder to unbolt in seconds. We would rather tell you that plainly than sell you something you do not need. But a screw protects the plate, not the car — and if a thief wants the vehicle on your drive, they are not coming for the number plate.
Keeping the actual car where it belongs
Most cars in our area are now taken electronically, without the keys, in under a minute. That is where a properly fitted immobiliser earns its place. An Autowatch Ghost or a Nitro Pro immobiliser adds a PIN sequence through the car’s own buttons that must be entered before the engine will start — so even a thief holding a cloned key gets nowhere. Both are £499 fitted, TASSA approved, and installed on your driveway.
Talk to us
Fit a set of anti-theft screws to your plates, then think about the car itself. If you would like an honest opinion on what your vehicle actually needs, call us on 03330 129 028 or message us on WhatsApp. We cover Essex, Hertfordshire and North London, and we come to you.