Nobody today gives a second thought to their car needing registration plates, but initially this was a very unpopular imposition.
In 1900, Autocar opined in reply to an article in the County Council Times: “We cannot understand, except on the assumption that autocarists are less amenable to the law than all other of Her Majesty’s liege subjects – which is absurd – why they alone should be chosen for having numbers painted on their vehicles.
"Why should they above all users of the highway be subjected to the indignity of having to bear, as it were, upon their foreheads the mark of Cain?”
In 1901, the Automobile Club issued a manifesto signed by 99% of its members to county councils, stating: “English gentlemen have the greatest repugnance to having their private vehicles identified and disfigured by numbers.
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"[This] would be such a departure from the accepted conditions of life in this country that it would lead the public to believe that a man who prefers to use a vehicle propelled by an engine to one drawn by a horse is, in the eyes of the authorities, a person who is likely to misconduct himself.
"The stigma implied would prevent gentlemen from purchasing motor vehicles.”
It also hosted police chief constables in London to experience a car and discuss motoring matters. At the time, motorists frequently accused police and magistrates of treating them unfairly – as did Autocar. We even printed maps of police speed traps.
Not all the chief constables were in favour of cars being numbered, but a great majority of them were.
Captain Drummond opined that “constables were numbered, and motorists must not object if constables gently suggest in return that motorists should be numbered”.
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