Visibly invisible
Inasmuch as there has been so much honking about the ambiguity of some items of the Land Transportation Office and the Department of Transportation and Communications’ Joint Administrative Order 2014-01, or JAO 2014-01, I hope that both concerned offices will, at least, strictly enforce Section II, Violations In Connection With Motor Vehicle Registration/Renewal/Operation, subsection e, Failure to Attach or Improper Attachment/Tampering of Authorized Motor Vehicle License Plates and/or Third Plate Sticker.
This subsection emphasizes the violation to “…include the attachment of any unauthorized plate/s or any accessory or device to and/or around the authorized motor vehicle license plate, or any manner of attachment that impedes in any way the visibility or reflectivity of the authorized motor vehicle license plate and/or the third plate sticker.”
There are two reasons why I want this strictly implemented. The first reason came about when we were informed that there would eventually be a resolution by the provincial board that would require all villages, compounds, subdivisions and the like to install closed circuit television cameras. We had a couple of CCTV system vendors come over our village so we can test their equipment and pick the one with the better equipment at the most economic price. We intentionally tested the cameras at night to see how effective they were with low-light conditions. One thing we noticed is that license plates with vanity covers, even those with transparent ones, were not readable with regular 1080p high-definition (HD) cameras. The cameras that could best penetrate through these vanity covers were the high-end HD cameras that ran around a hundred thousand pesos each. This may not be an issue for villages whose associations collect monthly dues in the thousands of pesos per homeowner. But for the smaller low-cost housing projects, buying really expensive equipment would be subject to a very long winded debate that would never end.
Strictly enforcing Section II-e of JAO 2014-01 would greatly reduce that need for high-end HD cameras and would allow all villages to be able to secure their villages at a reasonable price. If one were to recall an incident last year, recorded footage from a CCTV system helped to pinpoint the suspect of a heinous crime.
And in case you’re wondering how this could be relevant to motoring? Well, I did mention that there were two reasons why they should strictly implement Section II-e. And this reason is the part where they mention the visibility of the third plate sticker. You see, if they strictly implement the visibility of the third plate sticker, that means they have to make sure they provide us with the third plate sticker. I mean, it’s been three years since I’ve last been issued plate stickers. And with my jalopy’s registration being up for renewal in a few weeks, I’m hoping I could present to them all three previous receipts showing the stickers I never received and get a discount by having them deduct the three years’ worth of stickers I never got. Yeah, I know! Good luck with that happening!
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