Impenetrable to outsiders, letters and digits on plates reveal everything within seconds to traffic police.
AAA means a car from the special service providing guards for top officials, including President Vladimir Putin. AMP makes any policeman stand to attention; an interior ministry boss is driving by. XKX, they say, means secret police.
Ubiquitous traffic wardens, who routinely hand out heavy fines with no receipt for even minor violations, have no right in practice to stop such cars, no matter how they are driven.
On the contrary, police often disrupt common traffic to leave a corridor free for them to pass. Many city-center streets have a special middle lane for use by official cars.
On one occasion, Putin's bodyguards were required to check a Mercedes carrying AAA plates to determine they were fake. No policeman had dared intervene.
Asked why he did not flag down a car sailing through a red light, a policeman shrugged: "It had `tricky' plates and seemed in a hurry. God knows, perhaps it was going to the Kremlin."
Vladimir Fyodorov, Moscow's long-serving traffic police chief, said before leaving the job last year that "special cars" -- usually equipped with flashing lights, sirens and a horn sounding like a bear growl -- did not seriously impede traffic.
"But they do create a lot of negative emotion among other drivers," he said.
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