Survey: Cars Worth RM160k+ Are More Likely to Have Illegal License Plates & Fully-tinted Windows

With the amount of modded cars we see on the road, it certainly makes us wonder who are the ones who go against the basic JPJ rules.

In a survey done in KL by the Centre for Governance and Political Studies, they were able to identify (by observation) a total of 1256 unlawful vehicles in the month of May.

In May 2022, Cent-GPS conducted an observation on vehicles in Kuala Lumpur. We wanted to identify what type of cars are the most likely to break standard JPJ rules on window tinting and standardised car plate numbers

In total, we observed 1256 unlawful vehicles pic.twitter.com/fJDs6ZC0Es

— Centre for Governance and Political Studies (@CentGPS) June 7, 2022

These cars were said to have illegal license plates and/or illegally-tinted windows.

For license plates, individual letters and digits cannot be more than 7cm tall and 4cm wide and the break between letters and numbers should be 3cm.

For illustration purposes only.

As for car window tints, the law states that there must be a 50% Visible Light Transmission (VTL) for front row windows while there is no limit for rear and rear side windows. An exemption can be given to those with medical conditions.

In a Twitter thread discussing their findings, they mentioned that they carried out their survey by stationing teams across multiple KL entry locations during the rush-hour traffic on work days in May.

They monitored the cars moving during congestion and found 1256 unlawful vehicles.

About 56% of the cars with illegal license plates were worth over MYR 160,000 (brand new) in the current market while 13% were vehicles worth MYR 120,001 to MYR 160,000. 12% were cars worth MYR 80,000 to MYR 120,000 and 8% were worth MYR 50,000 or less.

Other than by worth, they also sorted it out by car brands with continental cars (Mercedes, Audi, BMW, etc) making up 33.4% of cars with illegal license plates, Asian cars (Toyota, Honda, Lexus, etc), 51% and Malaysian cars, 15.6% with many of them being the Proton X70.

For illustration purposes only.

Moving on to illegally-tinted windows, the team only recorded the cars that had fully-tinted windows on the driver’s side as they did not have proper equipment. They found that 52.8% of cars with illegal driver side tinting are worth over MYR 160,000.

It is worth noting that this study did not look at motorcycles, so it cannot be concluded that people of a certain income group (T20) are more likely to break JPJ rules.

However, the research centre says:

“With cars over MYR 160,000 dominating both categories of cars with illegal plate numbers and illegal tinted windows, we must ask why our society treats the ‘seemingly rich’ with more privileges, allowing them to think that they can get away with clear violations of the law.”

They added, “Moreover, it begs the question of our policy-making and rule of law, if something as simple as car plate number laws are not being obeyed by certain segments of our country, how are we going to enforce more complex laws in the future?”

For illustration purposes only.

Well, the findings have truly shed some light on the matter. What is your opinion on this? Let us know in the comments.

Also read: Saw A Traffic Violation On The Road? You Can Now Submit A Complaint via The e-Aduan@JPJ App!