On re-reading the article, I expect that the majority of people who bought this item did so as an act of bravado, or for the gadget effect, but in reality this device has very limited use.
When might one use it then? You can't just drive around with your plates masked, or you'll get stopped and fined. And it won't help you avoid parking fines when parking illegally - the traffic warden will notify the police if a car is parked on a public road effectively without plates.
And it won't help those driving without VED or insurance either - you would be better off taking your chances with being found-out by ANPR-equipped patrol cars than regularly drive around with masked plates.
And, if you jumped a red light, or past a speeding camera while driving over the speed limit, and got flashed, well it's too late to cover your plates then.
So it seems that the only case where this device might be 'useful' is if you deliberately plan on jumping a red light or speeding in front of a camera and can mask the plates just before the event.
That would work - but only in theory - because I doubt many drivers will actually be doing this.
If the first instance, if cameras up and down the land actually started capturing images of cars with masked plated, police would have taken more decisive action by now.
Then, for those handful of cases when this device was used in this way, the police would have no difficulty whatsoever in identifying the perpetrators if they put their minds to it. Given the amount of CCTV on our roads and in our cities, all the police have to do is look at the footage from other cameras in the area just before and after the event, and find images of the car before (or after) it masked its plates.
So very interesting gadget, but regardless of how many were sold in the UK, I seriously doubt that they are being used to enable driving illegally in anything more than a handful of cases.
