The freedom that foreign drivers have enjoyed to flout the rules of the road safe in the knowledge that the authorities cannot trace them may be coming to an end. British police are planning a crackdown using new technology that will let them target car numberplates issued anywhere in the European Union.
In future, foreign drivers who try to evade the law by using cars with overseas plates face having their vehicles clamped or towed away.
The move will tackle one of the longest-running gripes among British motorists: that while they are penalised with increasing regularity for minor offences, thanks to the burgeoning network of roadside cameras, drivers of cars with foreign plates get off scot-free because the authorities struggle to trace vehicles registered abroad.