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.