Last year,West Yorkshire Police had 2,449 vehicles squashed to small cubes for such offences and yesterday a demonstration of this final sanction was given to motorists at Calverley Bridge, between Horsforth and Rodley.

The demonstration by a mobile crusher was part of a police operation to stop illegal use of vehicles involving a whole range of offences including driving with no insurance, no road tax and no licence.

Officers from North West Leeds Division have joined forces with West Yorkshire Police's Motorcycle Unit, student officers from the Force Training School and partnership agencies including Leeds City Council, VOSA, and HM Revenue and Customs for the operation targeting road users who flout the law.

Teams of officers have and are continuing to use automatic number plate recognition technology (ANPR) to trawl roads in the area to identify suspect vehicles.

Such vehicles are then being stopped and directed to the multi-agency check site where they are thoroughly checked for any offences including everything from illegal fuel to unlicensed loads. Last week saw the same agencies operating the initial phase from Gallagher Leisure Park, in Thornbury, Bradford.

In one day, officers stopped more than 70 vehicles which were subjected to rigorous checks by the various agencies.

Of these, 26 were prohibited as being unroadworthy, 28 received environmental enforcement notices for unlawful carriage of waste, and one vehicle was seized after it was found being run illegally on red diesel.

A further four vehicles were seized for document offences, ten fixed penalty notices were issued, ten drivers were given orders to produce their driving documents at a police station, and two were given official notices to get faults on their vehicles fixed.

The operation also provided police with an opportunity to gather intelligence on people suspected of being involved in other crime, such as burglary.

In 2009 West Yorkshire Police seized 8,009 vehicles being driven by people with no insurance or no driving licence. Of those 5,517 vehicles were reclaimed by their owners and the vast majority of the rest were crushed.

The owners are charged a statutory fee for recovery and storage of their vehicles. The fees are fixed by the Home Office according to the weight of the seized vehicle. The removal charges range from £150-£350 and storage charges from £10-£35 per day.

Chief Insp Elizabeth Belton, who led the operation, said: "We hope that seeing the car crusher in action will have provided a dramatic illustration to people of the drastic action we can take to get uninsured and unlicensed drivers off our roads."

* Click here for latest YEP news.

* Click here for latest Wakefield news.