Why your number plate may be removed

On one Monday morning on my way to work, the taxi I had boarded got held up in a heavy traffic jam. It was along Jinja Road on the stretch that runs from Spears Motors to City Oil. As we waited to be released, I realised there were four traffic officers walking in between the two traffic lines.
Looking closely, I noticed that one of them was holding a smart phone. They walked from vehicle to vehicle entering number plates in the smart phone and targeted those privately owned. All of a sudden, the Toyota Premio with UAS series that was ahead of us had its rear and front number plates removed using a hammer, to a point of nearly opening the car boot as they removed the rear plate. I started wondering why these traffic officers removed them yet the vehicle looked to be in a roadworthy condition. So why would this happen.

Accumulated penalty receipts
Gabriel Alany, a field traffic officer who works along Jinja Road explains that when motorists commit road offences such as speeding and dangerous loading, they are in most cases issued with penalty receipts. These receipts, he says indicate the place where the offence was committed, the date, name of issuing officer, the amount to be paid and the offence amounting to the charge.
“When I issue you with a penalty receipt today, you may ignore it and keep it for six months or even a year. When you commit another offence in a different location and accumulate these receipts for a long time, the charges eventually accumulate and become too much to pay. The end result will be plucking off your number plate when we get you,” Alany explains.
The consequences of having your number plates removed, Alany says, involve not being allowed to drive on the road by Uganda Revenue Authority because it is illegal.

“When you see traffic officers removing number plates of other motorists, it creates fear and tension in them and this makes them cooperate by paying for whichever penalties they may have committed,” Alany adds.

Accountability
When your number plates are removed, Alany says they are taken to the police tracing unit at Nakawa and Naguru to open the police database to find out if the removed number plate has other charges to be paid by the owner.
“When you go to the tracing unit and tell traffic police that you are not financially stable to meet your charges, you can be asked to pay half of the charges or even pardoned and given back your number plates,” he concludes.