How 28,000 UK Drivers Illegally Removed a DVLA Wheel Clamp Last Year

• DVLA figures given to Parliament show 28,642 wheel clamps were illegally removed from untaxed vehicles last year, a 37 per cent rise on the 20,855 reported two years earlier.
• More than 150,000 untaxed vehicles were clamped across the UK last year, and drivers who forcibly remove a clamp themselves risk prosecution for criminal damage or theft.
• London, Manchester, Birmingham, Cardiff and Glasgow topped the list of postcode areas with the most clamping offences, and paying by Direct Debit is the simplest way to avoid ever being clamped at all.

Nearly 29,000 Drivers Broke the Law to Get Their Own Car Back

Transport minister Simon Lightwood confirmed the figures to Parliament this year, and they describe a problem the DVLA has been fighting with a talking cartoon clamp. Nearly 29,000 immobilisation devices were unlawfully removed from vehicles in a single year, up more than a third on the number recorded two years before. Every one of those removals is a criminal offence, and every one of those drivers had a legal, simple way to avoid ever being clamped in the first place: taxing the vehicle on time.

The DVLA says 98.7 per cent of drivers pay their Vehicle Excise Duty correctly and on schedule. The clamping and illegal removal figures describe the small minority who do not, but that minority is not small in absolute terms. More than 150,000 untaxed vehicles were clamped across the UK last year by DVLA enforcement teams and their contractors, patrolling roads and checking number plates against the tax database. When a clamp goes on an untaxed vehicle, the driver has a lawful route back to the road: pay the £100 clamp release fee within 24 hours, or the £200 impound release fee once the car has actually been towed away. Instead, tens of thousands chose to cut, prise or force the clamp off and drive away anyway.

Why the DVLA Calls It a Menace, Not Just a Debt

Jack Cousens, head of roads policy at the AA, put the concern in blunt terms: untaxed vehicles are often uninsured too, frequently missing a valid MOT, and disproportionately likely to have already racked up unpaid speeding and other traffic penalties. His point about the illegal removals specifically is the sharper one. Having the tools and the know-how to cut through a DVLA clamp is not something most law-abiding drivers possess or would think to acquire, which suggests the vehicles being freed this way are precisely the ones enforcement teams have the strongest reason to keep off the road.

DVLA chief executive Tim Moss CBE was equally direct about where responsibility sits. Most drivers keep their vehicle tax current without incident, he said, and the consequences that follow a missed renewal are entirely avoidable. Taxing a vehicle takes minutes online, and setting up a Direct Debit means the process happens automatically and the cost can be spread rather than paid in a single lump. Nobody is clamped for forgetting to renew if the renewal never lapses in the first place.

The Cities Where Clamping Is Most Common

The combined clamping figures broken down by postcode area put London at the top by a wide margin, with 16,557 vehicles clamped for unpaid tax. Manchester followed with 9,174, then Birmingham with 7,369, Cardiff with 4,213, and Glasgow rounding out the top five with 4,207. Every one of those clamped vehicles represents a driver who, at some point, either forgot, delayed, or deliberately avoided taxing their car, and every one of them then faced the same choice: pay the release fee and move on, or attempt to remove the clamp and risk a far more serious legal problem than an unpaid tax bill.

Vehicles can also be clamped for reasons that have nothing to do with the DVLA’s tax enforcement. Council bailiffs, now operating under the fee rules that came into force in May, can clamp a car on the road as part of enforcing an unpaid council tax or parking debt. A clamp on a driveway or roadside is not automatically a DVLA tax matter, and the correct response differs depending on who applied it, which is why checking the paperwork left on the vehicle, rather than assuming, is the right first step before deciding what to do next.

What Happens if You Remove a Clamp Yourself

Breaking a legally applied clamp is treated as criminal damage. Driving away with it still attached, or keeping it after removal, can be treated as theft on top of that. Neither charge requires the vehicle itself to have been stolen or the tax debt to be disputed; the offence is in the act of removing property that was lawfully fixed to the car by an enforcement authority, regardless of how frustrating or expensive the underlying situation feels in the moment. A criminal record for either offence carries consequences well beyond the original unpaid tax bill, including in job applications, professional licensing and any future contact with the police over an unrelated matter. None of that risk is necessary when the legal route back to the road costs a fraction as much and takes only as long as it takes to make a payment.

The DVLA’s January campaign, fronted by an animated clamp called Clampy, was built around a simple message: nobody wins when a car gets clamped, not the driver stuck on a driveway, and not the taxpayer funding the enforcement effort that put it there. The campaign leans on humour, but the underlying data is not funny for the households caught in it. A £100 release fee paid within a day is an inconvenience. A criminal damage or theft charge, on top of the tax bill, the clamp release fee, and potentially an impound release fee if the car has already been towed, is a considerably worse outcome than most drivers seem to appreciate in the moment they reach for the tools.

How to Check Your Tax and Avoid Ever Being Clamped

Checking whether a vehicle is currently taxed takes under a minute at gov.uk using the registration number, and the same service confirms the exact renewal date so there is no ambiguity about when the next payment is due. Setting up vehicle tax by Direct Debit, either monthly, six-monthly or annually, removes the risk of a missed renewal entirely: the payment is taken automatically rather than relying on a driver remembering a date. For anyone who has already been clamped, the fastest and cheapest way back on the road is simple: pay the outstanding tax, pay the £100 release fee within the first 24 hours if possible to avoid the vehicle being towed at all, and never attempt to force the clamp off, however urgent the situation feels. The legal route costs a fraction of what the alternative can end up costing, in money, in time, and in a criminal record that follows a driver long after the tax bill itself is forgotten.

What Happens to a Vehicle That Stays Impounded

Paying the release fee within 24 hours is only the first deadline that counts. If a vehicle is not claimed from the pound at all, the DVLA can eventually dispose of it, and that process moves faster than most owners expect once a car has been towed rather than simply clamped on the street. The longer a vehicle sits unclaimed, the more storage costs accrue on top of the original tax debt and release fee, so the financial gap between sorting the problem out immediately and leaving it to escalate widens by the day rather than staying fixed. Drivers who cannot pay the full amount at once should contact the DVLA directly rather than letting a clamped or impounded car simply sit: enforcement contractors and the agency itself deal with genuine hardship cases differently to ones where no contact is ever made.

Sources:

• Car tax issues prompt 28,000 drivers to illegally remove wheel clamps despite DVLA crackdown, GB News
• DVLA enforcement of vehicle tax, registration and insurance offences, GOV.UK