I have been encountering quite a fair bit of police and JPJ roadblocks since before the Chinese New Year and time and time again the usual groans I hear is that they get caught for either having too dark tinted windows and another for fancy license plate.
Now what is a fancy license plate? Since 2010 when the German car boom started picking up in Malaysia, more and more cars started appearing on the road and with that formed car clubs. And when car enthusiasts gather together, the mods come flying about and one of the usual simple mods would be the license plate.
A normal license plate which you normally get off the shops using the standard JPJ specifications costs around RM10-RM20 depending on the size and length. With the proliferation of these fancy plates, some shops are charging a bomb for them, from RM80 to RM400 for a set of plates. Normally the expensive ones are either made of carbon fibre or specifically imported all the way from Germany.
Some stick to standard plates and just stick the blue sticker which in Europe show which country this car originates from (not manufactured but rather registered). Others fall under the category of completely getting a different set completely. In some cases, I had friends whose “stickers” were peeled off during one of the said roadblocks.
I am guilty of being one of them. I used to be an advocate of the standard license plate and then have to worry about my tinted windows but after a few convoy runs behind cars with extremely wide and sticky rear tyres, I broke 3 license plates. Yes, 3 of them! Because I was getting tired of replacing them, I decided to get one that is metal and hence deemed a fancy plate.
According to Road Transport Authority (JPJ), there are 3 types of license plates allowed for use:
- White alphabets and numbers, embossed or glued on a black plate.
- White alphabets and numbers, embossed or glued on a red plate for vehicles belonging to embassies, the UN and the International Natural Rubber Association.
- Black alphabets and numbers, embossed or glued on a white plate for taxicabs and hired cars.
Based on the specification and description above, in true honesty, I can’t seem to find what exactly are the specifications. Other than the dimensions specifications and some samples of font, technically it might give an impression that any font type can be used.
Of course I am sure the fine folks over at JPJ would then disagree.
So what do you think?
*This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Autofreaks.Net
