BEWARE, untaxed drivers - the DVLA is clamping down on road tax dodgers in York.

As part of a series of neighbourhood policing days, designed to crackdown on the crimes people find most annoying, the DVLA is towing away untaxed cars.

Two teams blitzed Tang Hall with recovery trucks yesterday.

First up was an R-registered black Ford Escort, which had been out of tax since June. Within five minutes, at 8.30am, all that was left was an empty parking space, and the unsuspecting owners were nowhere to be seen.

DVLA enforcement officer and recovery driver Mark Cross, 42, from Newcastle, said: "We had to learn to do it quickly, or we'd get our heads kicked in.

"You get a lot of people leaving their house to find that their car's gone, and ringing the police to say it's been stolen. In summer, people go on holiday and come back to find their car's been crushed.

"We're not very popular - we don't get very many Christmas cards."

And it's no wonder - there was laughter and a round of applause from DVLA officials as the first car of the morning was hoisted up and taken away.

It was quickly followed by a T-reg black Escort in Burlington Avenue, a red Citroen Saxo from Tuke Avenue, and a souped-up blue S-registered Saxo and a battered old Ford Orion from Farrar Street. By 10am, one recovery vehicle had picked up five cars.

Curious neighbours opened their doors to see what was happening, but the owners of the cars remained blissfully unaware.

Mark was pleased. He was once threatened by a group of five men with baseball bats, and one untaxed driver threatened to chop his fingers off. He's found drugs and even a gun in cars.

"I pulled the handbrake up in one car and pulled a gun out at the same time," he said. "That scared me. I left pretty quickly.

"Like all jobs, it's good and bad. I don't like taking cars off honest people, but you have to treat everybody the same."

He once had to take a car from a father and his four children just as they were going out fishing.

"I pulled them over and they had to get out and walk up the road with fishing rods," he said. "It wasn't very nice, but they didn't have tax so their insurance was void, and what if they'd had an accident?"

The most expensive car he towed away was a one-year-old Porsche Carrera, belonging to a student.

Mark said: "His dad had bought it for him, and paid the tax and insurance for the first six months. The lad couldn't afford it afterwards. Luckily his dad bailed him out, but we have to crush some lovely cars."

Last week, he picked up a 30-tonne lorry being driven by a banned driver with no tax or insurance.

It has not yet been collected.

:: Two weeks - then the crusher

One DVLA recovery vehicle usually tows away about 15 cars a day

Of these, only five cars will ever be paid for and collected

If vehicles aren't collected within seven to 14 days, they are then crushed

About 70 per cent of all DVLA recovery operations are part of larger police operations

The three most common excuses which DVLA officials hear are "It's not mine", "I've only just bought it" and "I'm on my way to get it taxed now"

It costs £80 plus £120 surety, or a valid tax disc, to get a car released within 24 hours

After 24 hours, it goes up by £80, and an additional £15 per day for every day it is in storage.

Updated: 09:58 Tuesday, January 17, 2006