"Matthew Church" wrote in message
om...
"By 2004, the DVLA aims to have merged driver, vehicle and insurance
records into a "single or virtually single" database from which the
number-plate microchips will be programmed".

http://www.geocities.com/lclane2/microchips.html

Anyone have any updates on how this plan is getting along?

I would guess that this has been consigned to the bin, as numberplate
recognition cameras have proved
succesfull and are likely to be more useful than transponders.
As said in another part of the thread, the transponders would work much like
the product identifying labels in supermarkets and
id chips inserted into pets. To read them you need to be in reasonable
proximity to the device - so a scanner on a set of barriers
that a car passes thru (like a toll gate) would work well, but scanning a
vehicle from a motorway bridge would be next to impossible.

Automatic plate reading linked to DVLA computers is effective and can be
used over a much greater range, the police are using it every day of the
week up here in Wolverhampton.