View: Taking a little license with number plates

In 1903, the Times of India reported on how motor cars were suddenly increasing and the municipality was now considering requiring them to display identification numbers to enable erring owners to be tracked down. Mr. J. Zuberbuhler, an automobile expert interviewed by ToI, didn’t like this. It was pointless, he argued because “it is so easy to get a number covered with dust or to conceal it with a coat or rug that the system is of little use in