Better than tax discs

SIR – Recent letters have discussed the rise in car tax-dodging since the scrapping of paper discs.

Maybe we should follow the example of Germany, where number plates can only be obtained when the owner has insurance and a valid MOT (TÜV) and has paid tax.

The plates do not remain with the car and must be renewed when a car is sold to a new owner.

Increasing tax on fuel, suggested by David Barnett (Letters, November 18) as an alternative to vehicle excise duty, would penalise classic car owners. Colin A Cormac

Lingfield, Surrey

SIR – A few years ago, my car was stolen, cloned and sold on. It was only when the new owner tried to re-tax the car at the post office that it was noticed that the same registration number was already taxed elsewhere.

How will “clever” technology spot a cloned car? Surely police cameras will simply register it as taxed and insured (assuming, of course, that the owner of the genuine car is honest and diligent in taxing and insuring his car).

A simple tax disc, on the other hand, is an obvious indicator to even the average person on the street, as well as traffic wardens and patrolling police. Patrick Long

South Wigston, Leicestershire

SIR – As a young PC on the streets of west London in the mid-sixties, I asked an older officer why he was so interested in tax discs.

“Laddy,” he growled in his broad Glaswegian accent, “failure to display a road fund licence conceals a whole multitude of sins.” Iain Gordon

Banstead, Surrey