DRIVERS have been warned to pay their road tax or risk seeing their pride and joy crushed into bits of metal.

West Mercia has become the eighth police force in England and Wales to take on devolved powers from the DVLA (Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency) which enable it to seize and possibly destroy untaxed vehicles.

This is an extension of West Mercia's existing powers under which it can seize uninsured and unlicensed vehicles and those driven by people without a valid driving licence.

The force currently seizes and destroys around 200 vehicles each month but with the new powers this is expected to rise to up to 250.

On average, 40 per cent of seized vehicles are destroyed or sold after 14 days because nobody has claimed them. As well as risking this, offenders also face a £60 fine.

Illegal vehicles are being identified through the use of mobile ANPR (automatic number plate recognition) teams, who use special equipment to read number plates.

In as little as one second the equipment checks number plates against DVLA records to identify vehicles that are untaxed, have no insurance, have been stolen, or are otherwise of interest to the police.

Insp Mark Travis, of West Mercia's force operations department, said: "Prevent-ing these vehicles from being used in the future helps to make our roads and communities safer and plays an important role in disrupting the activities of criminals.

"We will be focusing on West Mercia's boundaries to identify illegal vehicles as they enter the force area, as well as supporting local policing by targeting specific residential estates in Kidderminster, Redditch and Bromsgrove."

It is estimated that around five per cent of drivers - at least one million people - regularly drive without insurance, and collisions involving uninsured drivers cost up to £500m a year.