Now the traffic cops are set to launch a drive -- from October 5 -- against vehicles bearing registration number plates that do not conform in design to the law of the land.

The Traffic Act states that the vehicular number plates should be ``clear and legible and should not be inclined to the vertical by more than 30 degrees. All four-wheelers should have number plates where both the numerals and the letters are 65 millimeter in height, 10 mm in width and that there should be 10 mm of space between the letters.'' Moreover, sections 50 and 51 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1989 lay down precise specifications of the colour, size and display of a vehicle's registration plates. Police officials say one of the reasons the drive was being initiated is the ``increasing involvement of vehicles in crime on the Capital's roads. There have been a innumerable cases where Maruti-borne youths or even scooterists have robbed passers-by at gun-point and fled the spot. Investigations have shown that often the victims failed to note down a getaway vehicle's registration number because of defective or peculiar number plates. Many hit and run cases remain unsolved because of this.''

That's of course because tracing the registration number of a vehicle used in a crime constitutes the most important clue in identifying the culprit(s). When a victim is unable to recollect the registration number even vaguely, an all-important clue is lost. A vehicle bearing illegible or incomplete number plate is thus often a strong indication that the vehicle might be a stolen one.