Well here's my new UK "number" plate (they don't call them license plates here). This thing is huge and it's still not regulation sized. This one is about 7" tall by about 6" wide. I believe the legal size is 7" tall by 9" wide. I would have gone a bit shorter height wise but I was at the mercy of my vertical plate mount. The only thing I thought was cool was the guy who made it was able to put Harley-Davidson FXDB on the bottom.

 

Always figgered they made 'em so big on that side of the pond so's they could see you bikers from a far enough distance to be safe from the evil-ness dripping off y'all!

 

If you don't relocate that thing the bottom left hand corner will be ragged from hitting the ground in turns...Good luck with that.

 

I like it. If you have a matching one made for the right side you could have a life-size portrait of yourself painted on it.

Course with those two barn doors hanging out in the wind, your mileage and performance are gonna suck!

 

You gona rent advertising space on that billboard .

 

In a more serious vein - Will you catch any flak 'cause it's smaller than "regulation"?

 

I don't know, I guess I could get a ticket but I know guys with smaller plates that haven't been hassled much. One guy in the MSF course I just took has had his Nightster for three years here with a US sized plate and has never been messed with. I've been told that you can fail your annual inspection if you don't have a regulation sized plate, but all that takes is swapping them out to pass inspection.

After looking at the pics of the bike some more I've decided I really don't like the shape of it. I think I'm going to find a horizontal mount and get a new plate that is 7" wide by 5" tall. I think it will look a bit better and still not be so small that I could get hassled.

 

turning left should be easy :-(
maybe someone should do some test and put it in as a safety issue I am sure there must be some impact to having that barn door hanging off the side.

 

You can get chapter and verse on the registration marks here: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2001/uksi_20010561_en.pdf.

One thing to remember is that its not the size of the plate per se that's important, its the font size, letter spacing and border. Which ends up dictating the size of the plate anyway. Different shapes like yours are still OK as long as you can get those things right.

Bottom line though is not to mess with the font, got to be 64mm chars for a bike and its this that plod will check for. You can squeeze up the letters a little bit and reduce the border slightly and chances are plod won't bother but have little letters or an odd font and you might get a fine if stopped.

There's also some stuff about being able to read the plate from a certain diagonal length behind the vehicle i.e. you can't put a plate on the side of vehicle, it has to go on or near the back so its visible from nearly all angles. So, depending on how close your plate is to the back, you might get an MOT failure for what you have .

 

That thing is so big that when you get to 100 kph the bike will start to pull to the left.