Conforming To Number Plate Specifications

Police fined 615 persons in the week-long crackdown on number plates not conforming to the prescribed norms. Most of the offenders were two-wheeler riders.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) S. Saravanan said that the special drive is being conducted as number plates of several vehicles are not confirming to prescribed standards. The drive will conclude today.

“Use of fancy fonts, photos, special characters, and wordings are the commonest violations seen here. Some of the vehicle owners make minor alterations to the fonts to make them read as some as a word as in the case of altering numerals 8 and 5 to read 8055 as BOSS. Crash guards and other additional fittings blocking visibility of the rear number plates in heavy duty vehicle is also a violation,” said Mr. Saravanan.

As per Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989, the size of number plates for two and three wheelers is 200 x 100 mm. While the size is 340x 200 mm for light motor vehicles, passenger car should bear 500 x 120 mm number plate.

Medium and heavy commercial vehicles should have the number plate in 340 x 200 mm size. The registration numbers should also be displayed in the places and manner specified by the Central Motor Vehicle Rules (see box). For own use vehicles it should be white plate with numbers and alphabets in black and for hire vehicles it should be an yellow board with letters and numbers in black.

“Two-wheelers with registration number pasted on mudguard, dome, use of IND number plate, 'Dracula font', alternate use of small and big numerals, plates not conforming to prescribed size, and display of registration number in single line in the rear side are common offences found,” said traffic sub-inspector M. Periyasamy.

While 100 is fined for a first time offence, the fine is 300 if the same vehicle owner repeats the offence. For repeated offence and disobeying previous warnings, 500 can be fined.

So what are the top selling number plates in the UK? The DVLA has been selling private plates to UK motorists since 1989. During this time, there have been a number of records set, but most of the top 10 have been bought in the past 15 years. Here’s what currently makes the list:

25 0 – A Ferrari dealer bought this for £518k in 2014. It is now on a £10 million Ferrari 250 SWB.
F 1 – A businessman, Afzal Khan, bought this for £440k in 2008 and put it on his McLaren-Mercedes SLR.
S 1 – This was bought in 2008 for £404k by an anonymous buyer.
1 D – Businessman Nabil Bishara bought this plate in 2009 (before One Direction was formed, so it is not a reference to the band) for £352k.
M 1 – Businessman Mike McCoomb bought this number plate in 2006 for £331k, apparently for his son, who was 10 at the time.
VIP 1 – Chelsea owner and businessman Roman Abramovich bought this plate for £285k in 2006.
51 NGH – This number plate, which looks like the surname Singh, was sold in 2006 for £254k.
1 RH – Businessman Robert Haverson bought this in 2006 for £247k.
K1 NGS – This reg plate, which looks like the word “kings”, was bought anonymously in 1993 for £231k.
1 0 – This very simple but striking number plate was bought anonymously in 2009 for £170k.

These are large amounts of money, but they are all small compared to the top-selling number plates found in other parts of the world. Abu Dhabi, in the UAE, has the record for the most expensive number plate ever sold. That number plate was a simple “1”. It was bought in 2008 by businessman Saeed Abdul Ghaffar Khouri for £7.25 million.

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