More than 70 car number plates are stolen every day across the UK – here’s a £6 hack to help keep your reg safe

NUMBER PLATE theft is on the rise, with more than 70 stolen a day in the UK – and over 27,000 every year on average.

But car owners can help protect their reg from being stolen – and their motor from being cloned – with a simple £6 security measure.

Breakdown insurer, the AA, revealed that 29,250 plates were stolen across the country last year – having been provided data from 34 out of the 45 police forces.

This is an increase from 2016 when 26,391 registrations were reported stolen, with 25,999 thefts logged for the year prior.

There have been 22,487 up until the start of October 2018 and, unsurprisingly, the Metropolitan Police Service consistently deals with the most cases.

Car owners in the West Midlands and Greater Manchester have also been victimised the most.

However, number plates can avoid being targeted by thieves if they are secured onto the car with specially-made bolts that can be purchased for as little as £6.

These anti-theft gadgets can lock registrations by using a unique key that comes with each brand.

The edge around the bolt – known as a ‘spinning sleeve’ means that thieves cannot remove the device without the key.

Of course, criminals can just buy a pack of the bolts for the key, but there’s a greater chance that they just move onto the next car for a quicker and easier steal.

Meanwhile, car cloning is when your registration plate is stolen or replicated to commit further crimes – such as to mask the real identity of a stolen car, or for a thief to avoid speeding and parking tickets.

It’s also difficult for real car owners to prove that they were not at fault for a fine if their car was cloned, unless they have CCTV footage or a tracker confirming that the car was at a different location.

If your plate has been stolen, approved garages and stores can print you a new one if you show proof that you are the owner with your V5C logbook.

If you are regularly receiving fines because your plate has been cloned, you could ask the DVLA to provide you with a completely new registration plate – again, after providing proof you are the owner and that you’re not at fault for the fines.

Car owners can buy anti-theft number plates that shatter into pieces if they’re removed.

This concept was launched years ago, however, isn’t widely available as it was shelved by many companies to prioritise the manufacture of registrations that can be easily read by the ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) cameras that are being rolled out nationwide.

This is in addition to development and marketing of eco-friendly metal plates, as opposed to the standard non-recyclable plastic ones.

You should always report a missing car registration plate to police – even if you think it’s just fallen off.

More than a quarter of drivers wouldn’t report it if only one reg on their car was missing, the AA also revealed in a study.