DVLA to change number plate regime for articulated trucks

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Authority (DVLA) will from June 2019 change the number plate regime for articulated vehicles.

The change will see the issuance of separate license plates for the vehicles and the trailers.

The number to be displayed in front of the vehicles will, therefore, be different from the number displayed behind the trailers.

Currently, all articulated and trailers display the same license plates at the front and back.

But the DVLA says the current situation is problematic because trailers are detachable from the dragging vehicle.

It argued further that because trailers are not separately registered, owners do not properly maintain them.

Speaking to Citi News at a workshop jointly organized for journalists by the DVLA and the Road Safety Commission at Elmina in the Central Region, the Director for Vehicle Inspection and Registration, George Ackom, said the policy is in line with international best practices.

“We have been talking about the implementation of registering trailers separate from the trailer heads. We are observing that the non-operationalization of this provision is creating road safety issues and operating issues where other neighboring countries have registered their trailers but Ghanaians trailers when they load goods and they travel outside the borders, they encounter problems,” he said.

He explained that the plan to have both elements registered separately has long existed in the country’s road safety regulations but have not been implemented.

“This has been and existing provision in the road traffic regulation LI 2180 and till date, we have not been able to operationalize it….We are not going by the dictates of the Geneva convention of 1954 that trailers are regarded as vehicles that must be registered separately from the head that draws it,” he said stressing that the Authority is now intends to ensure that the regulation is duly adhered to.