YOUR NUMBER PLATES ARE the most obvious way for other people to identify your car, but unscrupulous types are increasingly stealing plates to disguise the identify of the vehicles they use to commit crimes, avoid penalties for driving offences, or to fill up the fuel tank and drive away without paying.
Authorities have taken steps to make the acquisition of number plates more difficult, requiring better identification before they are issued, but this only makes the plates on your car a more tempting target.
Anti-theft screws are designed to stop a potential thief from removing your number plates and using them on another vehicle. Most screws can be installed using a standard screwdriver, but have special heads that stop them being turned anti-clockwise. Once they’re in, they require a special technique to remove them, and most thieves will simply move on to an easier target. Other number plate screws (which I have only seen overseas but may be available locally) have a special head that require a specialised tool to remove them. Another simple option is to attach your number plates with rivets. In order to remove the plates attached in this way, you (or a thief) will need to drill the rivets out. (You can also use hardened steel rivets, as the previous owner of one of my own cars did. However, neither I nor my mechanic could drill them out, so my new number plates are mounted on top of the old ones, that proved impossible to remove. I’m hoping no eagle-eyed police officer decides that a car wearing two sets of number plates one on top of the other thinks it suspicious and stops me to investigate.)
The good news is that anti-theft number plate screws are cheap and easy to install. If you need to change your plates on a regular basis (which can’t be a common occurrence!) then anti-theft screws using a special tool will avoid the need to drill out the old ones (and the need to replace them with new screws).
If you find yourself having to remove the one-way screws, the technique is reasonably straightforward. You’ll need a Dremel or similar tool. Using a cutting wheel, carefully cut a slot into the screw head until you can use a standard blade screwdriver to turn the screws anticlockwise to remove them. You could re-use them with your new plates but you have effectively turned them into ordinary slotted screws, so it’s best to replace them with a new set. Yes, it’s simple, but in our experience, few number plat thieves carry a Dremel with them, so the odds of anyone stealing your plates when attached with one-way screws is relatively minor.