Vehicle number plate positioning-bad practices

One of the reasons why vehicles are mandated to have a registration number displayed properly in front and rear is that a passerby should be able to read the number plate and identify the vehicle, in case the car (or any other vehicle) speeds away after causing an accident. But several car owners resort to some practices which defy above purpose. In an earlier post several years ago, I’d written about Fancy Number plates, written in some strange fonts or designs which are very difficult to comprehend from a distance. In this post, it is about positioning the number plate.

All vehicle manufacturers give a designated area at the front and rear of the vehicle to affix number plates-usually at the centre. But some car owners use this designated space for some fancy writing and display the registration number elsewhere…

So what’s wrong in it?
First, when a car speeds away after an accident, we’ll have very little time to note down the number. By default our eyes look at the spot where we expect the number plate to be. By the time we realize that the required number plate is not there and it is located elsewhere, few precious seconds would have been lost and the car would have moved several hundred meters ahead, making it difficult for us to read the actual registration number. So this habit of misplacing number plate negates one of the core purposes of displaying the registration number.

Second, most of the car manufacturers provide a light on top of the place where we display registration number. Thus during night time there’ll be some light on this spot and one can read the number plate displayed under the light. When registration number is displayed elsewhere, there won’t be lighting on it during night, making it even difficult to read it.

So, shouldn’t the traffic police enforce correct positioning of registration number? What do you think? May look like a trivial matter, but when the very purpose of displaying number plate is at risk, I believe we should understand it and correct ourselves.

Also read: Surviving Traffic police in India * Speed governor issue in Karnataka * Forgotten factor: Safe breaking distance * Reader unfriendly designer number places * Chennai police get Accent cars * Why spiderman can't work in India * Predict trajectory of this car accident * Car reviews: Fiat Linea * Scorpio Vls * Maruti Suzuki A-Star * Innova 2009 vs Xylo *