I'm afraid they now have this terrorism excuse. When I changed my front bumper I couldn't be arsed taking the plate of the oem bumper and since I had another plate (different characters from standard but perfectly readable...rear plate was perfectly legal) they stopped me on the M62 at 8.30 in the morning to give me the same £30 fine, the excuse they gae me was that if I'd been in an accident, say a hit and run, a witness could have not remembered the plate due to the different (and perfectly readable) characters. Bollox, excuses excuses only because you are jealous of my car, mate . I told him when he was handing me the £30 fine (had tried to be nice and polite to try and avoid the fine, but he was quite resolute) why wasn't he catching the many speeding motorists on the same motorway, or even those driving while chatting on their mobile. He couldn't give me an answer, I say probably a bit too much paperwork as there's points involved
PS took me over 1 hr to get home from 5.15pm from Warrington mate, so you wouldn't have escaped the traffic anyway leaving later