The Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) has made it mandatory for all motorcycles to display a manual number plate on the front, in addition to the RFID-enabled digital plate already required at the rear. Owners have until 15 November to fit the new plate at their own arrangement. Those who fail to comply by the deadline will face legal action.
The directive was announced in an urgent public notice issued by the BRTA on Friday, 16 October.
According to the notice, the Road Transport Act 2018 and the Road Transport Rules 2022 already require motorcycles to carry a retro-reflective number plate fitted with RFID at the rear. However, the authority has now decided that registration numbers must be visible from the front as well, in a bid to strengthen overall traffic management and monitoring on the roads. As an initial step, motorcycle owners will need to arrange and install the front plate themselves, following the conditions set out by the BRTA.
The rules on the plate’s design are strict. The front plate must be made of either stainless steel or aluminium, with Bengali letters and numbers written in black on a white background. No designs or decorative elements of any kind will be permitted.
The BRTA has also set separate size requirements depending on the type of vehicle. For scooters, the plate must measure 200 millimetres in length and 100 millimetres in width. For all other standard motorcycles, the plate must be 285 millimetres long and 50 millimetres wide. In both cases, the characters must be at least 20 millimetres tall so the number is clearly readable.
The authority has urged all motorcycle owners to follow the guidelines carefully and complete the installation before the deadline to avoid legal consequences. With around a month remaining, riders are advised not to leave it until the last minute.
