18,000 UK Vehicles Have 'Ghost Owners' Untraceable for Crimes

More than 18,000 vehicles are being used in the UK without proper records of where their owners live, it has emerged, part of what a Labour MP has called an increasing problem of "ghost owners" who cannot be held accountable for their driving.

According to a freedom of information request to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, 18,260 vehicles were listed in its records as being registered to the DVLA's own address, meaning the owner's location was not known.

The Labour MP Sarah Coombes, who has campaigned over what she says are excessively lax rules that allow people to easily buy cloned or otherwise untraceable number plates, has called on the agency to take urgent action. The West Bromwich MP was expected to speak in a debate on the DVLA in the Commons on Thursday.

The agency said many of the vehicles without an address were owned by car traders, and thus not an issue, but the British Parking Association, which submitted the FoI request, argued that the real problem was probably much greater than the figures suggested. It said members had found that between 10% and 20% of requests made to the DVLA for ownership data gave no results, in part because of vehicles registered without an address, but also because of associated issues, such as cloned plates registered to another car.

Coombes has called for a crackdown on the number of official suppliers of number plates. There are more than 34,000 suppliers, who are registered with the DVLA for a single payment of £40 and no criminal or other background checks.

Last year, an investigation by government advisers found that more than 130 registered number plate suppliers said they were willing to sell cloned plates. Another increasingly common way to evade driving penalties is "ghost plates", which use a reflective coating so they cannot be read by police cameras.

Coombes said: "Failing DVLA systems are allowing dangerous driving and criminality to flourish unchecked on our roads. The UK's woeful vehicle number plate regulation is leading to ghost and cloned plates being used in everything from car racing to drug dealing and even murders.

"We are also seeing an epidemic of 'ghost owners', where a vehicle has no registered keeper, which means speeding, hit and runs and worse are going completely unpunished as the driver cannot be found.

"We are all paying the price for these untraceable drivers through higher car insurance premiums. This failing roads regulation is undermining trust and safety and the DVLA must act urgently to sort this out."

According to a parliamentary question asked by the MP, the DVLA has not fined a single person in the last five years for failing to update their address.

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: "Our road safety strategy takes direct action to crack down on illegal plates that help criminals evade detection. This includes proposals for tougher penalties for driving with illegal plates, reviewing the standards for number plates and stricter checks during MOT testing."