Motor registration madness

There was a time when getting a number plate for your vehicle was a simple-matter. The Man from Madras Musings speaks of a not so distant past when each time you bought a new vehicle (which was not so often, no matter how well to do you were), you took it to the Regional Transport Office, applied for a number and got one eventually, along with the number plate, this being the RTO’s responsibility. There was a standard for the number plate and that is what everyone followed.

Then came this craze for customised number plates. Some wanted them to be in outlandish fonts. Others had strange ways of depicting the number. A third felt that zeroes before any number were useless anyway. The Government vehicles wanted a ‘G’ to indicate that they were ferrying Gods on earth and so were above any and all laws.

Then came doctors who had a plus put on their vehicles and in case that did not make it plain to the meanest intelligence as to who was driving or travelling in the vehicle, a ‘Dr’ was also added. MMM is not sure if the Drs expect the police to believe that they are on emergency services and so need to be waved on at all traffic lights. But he would assume that if this were to be the case, they could also add ‘Er’ (short for Emergency) on their number plates.

MMM also assumes that the Drs would have done this had it not been for the Engineers who rather nimbly stole a march and usurped those letters. Now why should an engineer need to jump signals? But they were not alone, for along came the lawyers who put up stickers depicting collar bands. That can have only one implied message – don’t mess with me on traffic rules or I will see you in court.

Be that as it may, number plates now come in all shapes and sizes. Like many other things in our country, the making of number plates has been privatised and so there is really no standard. The latest craze was sold on the basis of patriotism. Apparently many countries have number plates that have the initials of the nation on the side with a hologram below. Those who travelled abroad would often lament about how India was lagging behind on this. And then one day, presto! The Government okayed those number plates with IND followed by a hologram and many, including MMM, took to using them. Only it now transpires that the Government never sanctioned these. As to who sanctioned them, we shall never know and it will rank among those all time mysteries such as the Man in the Iron Mask and closer home, the Bhawal Sanyasi case.

The upshot is that the police have swung into action with what can only be termed as glee. They lurk behind trees and jump out at cars thereby causing nervous drivers to shy and rear. In fact, were it not for the seat belt law, many could fall off their saddles. But this is no concern of the police. They are after the IND plates with holograms and their duty being their sole concern, they have been apprehending motorists and fining them. Some, who later unburdened their feelings to MMM, also informed him that they made bold to ask the police as to what their crime was. To this they were told that the police were not so sure themselves but this they did know that something was being violated and so a fine would have to be paid. And that, as they say, was that!

When MMM lamented about his IND number plate to his chauffeur he was told not to worry, the matter was in capable hands. It was only later that MMM got to know what had been done. It was a typical Indian solution – a piece of paper had been pasted over the IND and the hologram. When MMM protested, he was told to remain silent, for, said the chauffeur, you never knew when the IND number plates would become legal again. This way, he said, you did not incur the cost of changing number plates twice.

Two-wheeler travails

If that be the problems of the motor car owner, the two-wheeler users are not better off in any way. They can be hauled up by the long arm of the law for not using helmets, giving someone a ride on the pillion, not having certain documents (as to what these are MMM is not certain) and not adhering to number plate rules. In the last-named category it is the style of lettering that the gendarmerie is finicky about. In number plates they would like everything to be just so.

Unlike cars where you can never be certain as to who is seated inside (minister’s mother, MLA’s maid, bureaucrat’s brother, etc), the police are on much firmer ground when it comes to the two-wheelers. The hoi polloi are easy pickings. And so they pounce on this unfortunate category of road-user with what in the old days would have been termed as gay abandon. A quick pounce, a jerking off of the ignition key with a deft flick of the wrist, and the victim is at your mercy.

The other day, MMM was walking by (he finds that he is happiest using this natural form of transport) when he espied a group of policemen lurking behind a few lampposts at a sharp bend. The moment a two-wheeler rounded the corner two or three of the cops would step out and apprehend the alleged offender. But this is an era when even mosquitoes and viruses have acquired new survival skills and the two-wheeler users have also become wiser. They rarely drive along a kerb, preferring to be in the middle of the road, which is really the safest spot in any Chennai thoroughfare. This being the case, the police sometimes miss  their prey. And that is precisely what happened at least on three occasions on that day, at least as far as MMM could observe!

The seniormost among the policemen was not happy. He then whispered something to one of the juniors and, therefore, more agile specimens, by which MMM means some of them whose paunches did not reach their knees. The next time a two-wheeler user came around and tried to evade the embrace of the law, the young policeman was to run after and apprehend him. It worked very well in theory but not so much in practice. For one, there were other and bigger vehicles on the road and these hindered his catching up with a truant two-wheeler. The young cop was putting himself to great risk, and all for some minor violation, which would not have happened if there was greater clarity on the law in the first place.

Tailpiece

All that stated above made The Man from Madras Musings wonder whether in this age of smart technology such primitive methods of law enforcement were really necessary. After all, we claim to be living in a world-class city. Have you ever noticed such police behaviour in any other part of the world?

-MMM