That business of the dealers being issued a block of registration numbers is a gift to thieves. I had a Yamaha motorcycle stolen and recovered, a patrol car noticed the bike in front had a larger than standard number plate fitted . He did a regn check, came up as a Yamaha but he wondered why the large car size plate, after tailing the bike for while he could see it was the wrong model. Stopped the guy and saw the bike had been rattle can resprayed and had no ignition switch, rider had no docs and soon found himself sitting in the back of the police car. When I went to pick the bike up from the the pound the officer mentioned the villain's name several times, I assume to see if I reacted and that it was an insurance job - or perhaps so I could visit with a few mates. The cop had often seen bikes fitted with small number plates, only legal on trials bikes, but never larger car size. He said thieves often make up fake plates one digit away from the real number as good chance it will come up as same make from a dealers block, which my bike did and that if he had used standard plate size he would probably have not have stopped him.
