Green Plates for EVs Are Legal — So Why Did Police Still Stop This Owner?

Sri Lanka's Department of Motor Traffic has been rolling out green-background number plates for electric vehicles — cars, three-wheelers and e-bikes — since the middle of this year, with roughly 88,000 of these plates already prepared for new and recent registrations. But at least one new EV owner says he was stopped and questioned by traffic police who simply didn't recognise the plate, which forced the Commissioner General of Motor Traffic to publicly confirm the plates are legal and ask the IGP to brief every police station. One side says this is normal teething trouble with any new rollout — give it a few months and every officer on the road will know a green plate on sight, no different from any other change RMV has introduced over the years. The other side says it shows how badly new rules get pushed down to the people who actually enforce them, and that an ordinary owner shouldn't be the one stopped on the road to patch a communication gap that wasn't their fault. Has a traffic officer ever stopped you over a rule or plate they clearly hadn't been briefed on, EV or otherwise? What happened, and how did you get it sorted without it turning into a bigger issue? ඔබේ වාහනයේ කොළ පාට නම්බර් ප්ලේට් එක නිසා පොලීසිය නැවැත්තුවාද? කතාව කියන්න.