Plans to tackle 'ghost' number unveiled in Parliament amid car racer crackdown by a Black Country MP

Street racers who hide their car registration number from cameras have been “rumbled”, an MP from the Black Country said as she unveiled plans to tackle “ghost” number plates.

Sarah Coombes urged MPs to back potential new £1,000 fines and six-point penalties, if drivers obscure their plates using reflective coatings so that enforcement cameras cannot read them.

The Labour MP also suggested her Vehicle Registration Offences (Review) Bill could bring in vehicle seizures or licence disqualifications for offenders.

She told the Commons: “When I got elected, I didn’t expect to be a road safety campaigner, but since I became MP for West Bromwich, family after family have come to me having lost a husband or a mother or a son through other people’s dangerous driving.

“Our roads are used by millions of people every day. They are vital to our communities, our economy and to keep us connected, and most people drive safely and are just trying to take their kids to school, get to work, or do the weekly shop.

“But there are some selfish people who use our roads as racetracks, who care nothing about risking other people’s lives and who are evading capture using dodgy ‘ghost’ number plates.”

Ms Coombes described “nightmare car racers that cause hell for local residents on Friday and Saturday nights when as many as 50 cars converge” in the Kenrick Way dual carriageway area of West Bromwich.

She said West Midlands authorities had found it “increasingly hard to catch these dangerous drivers due to the rise in ghost plates or stealth plates”.

The MP explained these plates look “normal” to the human eye but have a “reflective coating on them, or they’ve been interfered with in some way, which makes them unreadable to infrared police speed cameras on our roads”.

Drivers can buy them for as little as £30 online, and they face a fine of £100 if they are caught using them on the roads, with no penalty points.

“That’s less than you get for a speeding ticket,” Ms Coombes continued, adding: “So for those who want to drive recklessly around our roads or commit even worse crimes, why wouldn’t you when the penalty is so small?”

In calling for a review of “ghost” plate penalties through the Bill, Ms Coombes said: “A £1,000 fine with the threat of six penalty points, potentially even vehicle seizure or licence disqualification – those would be ways to clamp down on the use and supply of ghost plates.”

She said: “The drivers using these ghost plates have gone under the radar for too long, but now they’ve been rumbled and it’s time to crack down on them.”

The Bill will be listed for a second reading on March 7.

Before MPs heard Ms Coombes’ speech, a Government spokesperson said: “We are committed to reducing the numbers of those killed and injured on our roads.

“Since the general election, the Labour Government has begun work on a new road safety strategy, the first in over a decade. Ministers will share more details of the strategy in due course.”