The move follows four years of intensive lobbying by the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce (VACC) with the registration authority VicRoads and Victoria Police to fight a growing problem that costs both dealers and service station operators lost revenue and massive and costly inconvenience.

Police figures show that there have been a total of 19,000 case of stolen numberplates reported in Victoria. Many of these stolen plates are used to steal another vehicle’s identity, a practice known as ‘cloning’.

Under the new technology, an electronic radio frequency chip within a sticker inside the windscreen links the numberplate to the data on the chip. It is, in effect, a third numberplate. The chip self-destructs if an attempt is made to interfere with it.

When a car passes a toll point or a traffic camera, it matches the plates to the VIN number. If there is no match, the police are notified and any fines will not be sent to the registered owner of that car. It also allows the numberplate recognition (NPR) system in patrolling police cars to pick up non-matching plates and police can immediately intercept the vehicles with the stolen or copied plates.

The problem is especially acute and costly for service station operators. Stolen numberplates are used in 30 per cent of fuel drive-offs. Stolen number or cloned plates are also an enabler to other crime.

Drive-offs commonly leave service station operators plus or minus $100 a time and trucks driving off can leave the retailer up to $1000 out of pocket from fuel theft using false plates.

Stolen numberplates are also a big problem for dealers who lose plates from stock overnight. Crooks also use online car retailing forums to clone a vehicle’s numberplate. Then, weeks later, they are inundated with toll, speeding/traffic camera tickets and parking fines as well as dealing with police investigating crimes where stolen plates were used.

Trying to report the numberplates stolen and get VicRoads to change the rego on these cars is also a hugely time-consuming and costly activity for dealers.

GoAutoNews Premium has been told of the case of a dealer facing $26,000 in parking infringements because of numberplate theft and cloning where the parking infringement office was insisting that the dealer should pay. The case was withdrawn by the police prosecutor before it got to court but not before about $20,000 had been spent on legal fees.

While the move to conduct tests of the chip technology has been welcomed by the VACC, the chamber says the initiative does not go far enough.

The VACC wants the stolen numberplates details to be posted online so that service station operators can spot cars with stolen plates and keep the pumps turned off for those cars as there is a high probability they will drive off without paying.

The chamber says: “There is more to be done.”

It says it has, for the past four years, lobbied for changes to the VicRoads Vehicle Registration Enquiry (VRE) that would allow for the VRE to publicly advise if a car’s registration plate was stolen.

VACC chief executive Geoff Gwilym said in a statement: “This is yet to eventuate. It is the view of VACC that the VRE must be adapted to allow fuel retailers to fully utilise technology such as ANPR systems.

“This will enable fuel pump operators to have access to a live Application Programming Interface (API) with the VRE and will allow retail fuel operators to make a decision as to whether they will open a fuel bowser or not.

“Access to a live data feed and alert streaming from the VRE would also enable new and used car dealers to react in an efficient manner when dealing with an inordinate number of speeding, traffic and toll infringements that are generated as a result of registration plate cloning,” Mr Gwilym said.

By John Mellor