Traps that aren't speed traps

[mtantillo]

That's interesting. I'd think an expired inspection sticker would be a violation only in the state in which the vehicle is registered.

You are required to have a current and valid vehicle registration even if you are driving out of state. Now, an expired sticker may not necessarily indicate that the registration is no good (see my above example), but this is DC we're talking about. You might be able to get a ticket overturned in court if you got one but are you gonna travel all the way back to DC from wherever to challenge it? No, and they know that and take full advantage.

Washington DC issues ridiculous numbers of traffic and parking violations because they are partially or entirely denied a lot of the common more over the table means of raising revenue. The federal government is exempt from paying taxes so DC collects no property taxes on all of the federally owned land, which is a huge percentage of the land in DC. And while states can collect income tax on people who work in the state even if they do not live in the state, DC is not allowed to do this. So they ticket the shit out of Maryland and Virginia drivers instead.

I kind of think the idea of a "commuter tax" is a bit offputting...just charge a business license tax or something like that, rather than make individual people fill out more paperwork and file returns in places where they don't live. Besides, in DC's case, it gets plenty more back in Federal tax spending than it's residents contribute in Federal taxes, by a huge margin, so that makes up for the lack of ability to collect from Maryland and VA people.

Another advantage of DC's lack of ability to charge taxes to non-residents is that other states cannot charge taxes to DC residents (DC would not be likely to agree to a reciprocal agreement with another state that only involved taxation in one direction, and DC has reciprocal agreements with almost every other state). I know DC residents actually do not have to so much as even file a return in Virginia if they work there (I look it up on the Virginia Department of Taxation website every year just to confirm I don't have to file).

[mtantillo]

Around here, particularly in Cambridge, there are often plainclothes officers crossing streets at crosswalks as bait to catch people who failed to yield them the right of way.  Interestingly, bicyclists are frequently stopped in these traps as well.

In Fort Lee they dressed the officer up as a duck.  Yes, really.

Karen Haigh, of River Edge, said she was issued a $230 ticket for not stopping for the decoy.

"They told me that I was getting a ticket for not stopping for a duck," she told WABC-TV. "But it scared me. I'm a woman. This huge duck scared me.”

http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2014/11/donald_duck_pedestrian_decoy_draws_criticism_in_fort_lee_report_says.html

Something similar happened to an acquaintance of mine several years ago here in Maryland. There was a police officer who was standing in the middle of the road waving people over. She thought he was a hitchhiker, swerved into the other lane to avoid him, and sped up away from him. Naturally, he followed her and pulled her over. She was so terrified and shook up that the cop just let her go. She was about 18 at the time and it was her first time being pulled over.

I personally hate when they stand in the road like that. I almost hit one when I was 16 because he stepped out into the road in front of me to wave me over. WTF. I could have killed him.

Thankfully I haven't seen this kind of enforcement in MD since I was a teenager, and it needs to stay that way. I'm not so much scared that they're some sort of rapist, but more so that I'm going to plow them down for acting like an idiot pedestrian.


iPhone

So he was standing in the middle of the road and chased after her? He must have been able to run really fast... 

I got caught in two of those traps about a year apart, for speeding. But the officer was not uniformed. As far as I'm concerned, no badge, no uniform, no pull over.

[Pete from Boston]

A different kind of trap, one where the cops come find you:

Technically, it is illegal to bring alcohol into Massachusetts without a special permit. But enforcement is another story. In 1976, Massachusetts sent undercover agents to stake out New Hampshire liquor stores and record license plates of Massachusetts shoppers. New Hampshire police responded by briefly detaining the Massachusetts agents.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB125236461011390855

Maine has been reported to do the same in recent years.

[mtantillo]

A different kind of trap, one where the cops come find you:

Technically, it is illegal to bring alcohol into Massachusetts without a special permit. But enforcement is another story. In 1976, Massachusetts sent undercover agents to stake out New Hampshire liquor stores and record license plates of Massachusetts shoppers. New Hampshire police responded by briefly detaining the Massachusetts agents.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB125236461011390855

Maine has been reported to do the same in recent years.

What a crock. There is no customs or anything of that nature at the border between NH and MA. Reasonable quantity for personal use should not be illegal.

[Pete from Boston]

A different kind of trap, one where the cops come find you:

Technically, it is illegal to bring alcohol into Massachusetts without a special permit. But enforcement is another story. In 1976, Massachusetts sent undercover agents to stake out New Hampshire liquor stores and record license plates of Massachusetts shoppers. New Hampshire police responded by briefly detaining the Massachusetts agents.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB125236461011390855

Maine has been reported to do the same in recent years.

What a crock. There is no customs or anything of that nature at the border between NH and MA. Reasonable quantity for personal use should not be illegal.

They're bitter about the millions in lost tax revenue.  Reasonable quantities add up.

There's no love lost between these states when it comes to revenue.  Some may remember their dueling threats several years ago to toll their respective sides of the border.

[J N Winkler]

What a crock. There is no customs or anything of that nature at the border between NH and MA. Reasonable quantity for personal use should not be illegal.

This is a poisonous result of the Twenty-first Amendment's carve-out of the interstate commerce clause for state-level beverage alcohol regulation.  I don't think a personal-use exemption similar to what US Customs gives travellers entering the US would be workable in the absence of enforcement far more aggressive than would now be accepted at state borders given the existence of the Interstate system.  What might work is for the New England states, instead of pursuing beggar-thy-neighbor policies with regard to alcohol, to join an interstate compact with provision for transfer payments in respect of alcohol transferred between jurisdictions with different excise tax rates.  Alcohol would be taxed at the wholesale level, age verification would allow each alcohol sale to be associated with a state of residence, and the states would just settle up with each other at the end of each calendar year.  There would be no need for the customer even to see a BAC agent.

I don't expect this to happen soon, however, because New Hampshire takes a perverse joy in being the sand in everyone's gearbox:  state liquor stores in the Massachusetts and Maine borderlands, NHDOT construction plans put online only in encrypted ZIPs for which you have to pay to obtain the password, etc.

[empirestate]

The text for 39:4-85 does address passing a turning vehicle ("making or about to make a left turn"):

39:4-85.  Passing to left when overtaking; passing when in lines; signalling to pass; passing upon right
The driver of a vehicle overtaking another vehicle proceeding in the same direction shall pass at a safe distance to the left thereof and shall not again drive to the right side of the roadway until safely clear of the overtaken vehicle.  If vehicles on the roadway are moving in two or more substantially continuous lines, the provisions of this paragraph and section 39:4-87 of this Title shall not be considered as prohibiting the vehicles in one line overtaking and passing the vehicles in another line either upon the right or left, nor shall those provisions be construed to prohibit drivers overtaking and passing upon the right another vehicle which is making or about to make a  left turn.
The driver of an overtaking motor vehicle not within a business or residence district shall give audible warning with his horn or other warning device before passing or attempting to pass a vehicle proceeding in the same direction.

The driver of a vehicle may overtake and pass another vehicle upon the right  as provided in this section only under conditions permitting such movement in safety.  In no event shall such movement be made by driving off the pavement or main-traveled portion of the roadway.

Yeah, I found that too. I suppose it's possible I misinterpreted the first italicized passage, but the presence of the second makes me doubtful of that.

The 'main-traveled portion of the roadway' are the travel lanes.  The shoulder isn't considered the main-traveled portion, thus it is illegal. 

Sure, I understand that. Perhaps I should have said "misread" rather than "misinterpreted".

[Pete from Boston]

I don't expect this to happen soon, however, because New Hampshire takes a perverse joy in being the sand in everyone's gearbox:  state liquor stores in the Massachusetts and Maine borderlands, NHDOT construction plans put online only in encrypted ZIPs for which you have to pay to obtain the password, etc.

New Hampshire must have long ago figured out the math and concluded it's doing pretty well.  Plus the state is generally anti-sales-tax, which lessens its likelihood to get in on a tax compact. 

Another instance this reminds me of is outside Salamanca, New York, where I was once stopped for no reason but to ask about any recent tobacco purchases.  New York was apparently trying to send a message to the Seneca Indians who were then selling cigarettes drastically below the off-reservation price, though I don't know if they were confiscating, ticketing, assessing tax, or what (I hadn't bought any).

[Roadrunner75]

This reminds me of the fireworks sting operations that periodically make the news with NJ State Police staking out PA fireworks stores just across the river and following cars with NJ plates back across the bridge to make the stop.

[Pete from Boston]

Yes, I neglected to mention that along with the legendary nabbing of booze buyers, is the periodic story about Mass. cops radioing from the parking lots of fireworks stores in New Hampshire, giving descriptions to their colleagues just inside the Mass. border.  How much of this is true and how much is inflated, I don't know. 

For those who think this is an unusual trend, you just have to drive Route 28 over the Mass. line into Salem, New Hampshire, and see that the road is lined with stores boldly advertising liquor, cigarettes, cigars, fireworks, and guns (and before they were legalized in Massachusetts just over 10 years ago, tattoos).  It is a perennial thorn in Massachusetts's side that there is a relatively lawless place within half an hour of Boston, so these various traps and stings tend to recur.

[hm insulators]

I used to see the Fairfax County police running checkpoints for the county sticker, but since we no longer have those in Fairfax they stopped. (For those unfamiliar, in Virginia you pay personal property tax on your car, and for many years every city or county except the City of Virginia Beach also required you to pay a separate fee for a windshield sticker proving you paid the car tax. Nowadays some counties and cities still require those stupid things, but others don't; in Fairfax, we have to pay the fee but it's now a "county registration fee" and you no longer have to display a sticker.)

I remember those big huge windshield stickers. Twenty years ago, my parents lived for a few years in Roanoke, Virginia and they would drive out to southern California to visit me. The stickers are so large they about block half the vision.

[hm insulators]

Around here, particularly in Cambridge, there are often plainclothes officers crossing streets at crosswalks as bait to catch people who failed to yield them the right of way.  Interestingly, bicyclists are frequently stopped in these traps as well.

In Fort Lee they dressed the officer up as a duck.  Yes, really.

In the San Fernando Valley part of Los Angeles, I used to commute home from work by using Woodman Avenue south from Plummer Street (or Avenue; I forget which). Anyway, just south of the intersection with Nordhoff Street was a mid-block crosswalk and the LAPD (most of the valley is within the City of Los Angeles) would do the same kind of thing. Around Easter, the plainclothes cop would be dressed as the Easter Bunny and around Christmas as Santa Claus.

[mtantillo]

What a crock. There is no customs or anything of that nature at the border between NH and MA. Reasonable quantity for personal use should not be illegal.

This is a poisonous result of the Twenty-first Amendment's carve-out of the interstate commerce clause for state-level beverage alcohol regulation.  I don't think a personal-use exemption similar to what US Customs gives travellers entering the US would be workable in the absence of enforcement far more aggressive than would now be accepted at state borders given the existence of the Interstate system.  What might work is for the New England states, instead of pursuing beggar-thy-neighbor policies with regard to alcohol, to join an interstate compact with provision for transfer payments in respect of alcohol transferred between jurisdictions with different excise tax rates.  Alcohol would be taxed at the wholesale level, age verification would allow each alcohol sale to be associated with a state of residence, and the states would just settle up with each other at the end of each calendar year.  There would be no need for the customer even to see a BAC agent.

I don't expect this to happen soon, however, because New Hampshire takes a perverse joy in being the sand in everyone's gearbox:  state liquor stores in the Massachusetts and Maine borderlands, NHDOT construction plans put online only in encrypted ZIPs for which you have to pay to obtain the password, etc.

It is none of the minimum wage alcohol clerk's dang business where I live. I specifically take steps to avoid disclosing that information when in a bar or other such setting (by using my passport card as ID, which is a more legit form of ID than a driver's license IMO).

I'm sorry, but Taxachusetts can go shove it when it comes to BS like making it illegal to take alcohol into their state. If anyone ever asked me, I would say I am transporting it through their state to my place of residence...interstate commerce, so eff-off (and I have no problem telling some ABC wanna-be cop that).

That said, I rarely have need to buy alcohol for my own consumption out of my "state" of residence, since DC has dirt cheap liquor. Where I actually consume it...well, none of anyone's business.

[J N Winkler]

It is none of the minimum wage alcohol clerk's dang business where I live. I specifically take steps to avoid disclosing that information when in a bar or other such setting (by using my passport card as ID, which is a more legit form of ID than a driver's license IMO).

Workarounds would be fairly easy to devise--the purpose of the exercise is to discover taxing jurisdiction for purposes of recording the sale, not to collect personally identifiable information.

I'm sorry, but Taxachusetts can go shove it when it comes to BS like making it illegal to take alcohol into their state. If anyone ever asked me, I would say I am transporting it through their state to my place of residence...interstate commerce, so eff-off (and I have no problem telling some ABC wanna-be cop that).

The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

In principle you should be able to claim a transit exemption, but I would hesitate to put this to the test without first determining whether there is a law or court precedent that specifically disallows through-through movements from being treated as "delivery" and lays out a formula for distinguishing between the two.

The distinction between what the law allows and what its enforcers are entitled to presume becomes important in a variety of contexts--e.g. civil forfeiture in the US, or the Hoverspeed case in the UK (which concerns "indicative quantities" that work somewhat similarly to a personal exemption in the US Customs context).

That said, I rarely have need to buy alcohol for my own consumption out of my "state" of residence, since DC has dirt cheap liquor. Where I actually consume it...well, none of anyone's business.

I am not sure I have ever transported alcohol across a state line.  I am not above a bit of tax arbitrage, but I drink so little alcohol in general that the excise tax I pay on it is essentially trivial, even in a formerly dry, high-tax jurisdiction like Kansas.  Most people whose alcohol consumption is a mix of "on" and "off" probably pay far more in a sociability premium for "on" drinking than they do in tax.

[Duke87]

DC does "ROSA" enforcement which is obnoxious...if they see your out-of state vehicle parked regularly overnight for more than a 30 day period, you get a warning that you either need to get DC license plates or go through the exemption process showing proof of residency outside of DC and providing a reason for being in DC overnight frequently (i.e. my girlfriend lives there). To me that seems rather heavy handed, bureaucratic, and unnecessary.

That is the polar opposite of New York City, where anyone who can registers their car elsewhere to save on insurance and there is absolutely zero enforcement against this practice, at least by the police. If your insurance company figures out that you're lying to them, they will cut you off - they're the ones losing money. But the cops don't give a shit.

A lot of people register their vehicles in Pennsylvania since PA insurance is cheap and the PA DMV doesn't demand much in the way of proof of residence. Likewise, you will get people buying cigarettes in PA (where they are half the price) and illegally reselling them in NY without paying NY tax.

PA of course is more than happy to continue collecting tax revenue from New Yorkers illegally registering cars and buying cigarettes there and has no desire to do anything about this.

[Pete from Boston]

The City of Somerville, which would be in Fortune magazine if cities were honored for making money, turned every non-arterial route in the city into a permit parking zone, so that a) every street parker has to buy a permit (no-permit fine: $50), and b) any out-of-state plateholders must reregister in Mass. in order to get a local address at which to get the permit and therefore pay excise tax to the city.  Fair?  Technically, yes, but onerous in a town with a large student population.

[Fred Defender]

SD Highway Patrol can legally give tickets for something hanging from your mirror.

This is why I don't have fuzzy dice in my car.

I used to hang the wife from my rearview mirror when she misbehaved. Guess I'd best not do that in SD, huh?

[NE2]

I hang only awesome people from my rearview mirror. The SD cops don't care.

[jeffandnicole]

That said, I rarely have need to buy alcohol for my own consumption out of my "state" of residence, since DC has dirt cheap liquor. Where I actually consume it...well, none of anyone's business.

We've bought growlers out of state and transported them across state lines. In most cases, the growler beer is about $10 - $15.  Only in PA (of course) did the growlers run nearly $20 - just for the beer!

[hotdogPi]

I hang only awesome people from my rearview mirror. The SD cops don't care.

But hanging is a form of execution...

[roadman]

The City of Somerville, which would be in Fortune magazine if cities were honored for making money, turned every non-arterial route in the city into a permit parking zone, so that a) every street parker has to buy a permit (no-permit fine: $50), and b) any out-of-state plateholders must reregister in Mass. in order to get a local address at which to get the permit and therefore pay excise tax to the city.  Fair?  Technically, yes, but onerous in a town with a large student population.

Permit parking, resident parking, whatever you want to call it is NOT fair.  If a road is open to public travel, than all those using the road should have the right to park along it if necessary.

What Somerville, Boston, and other cities and towns that mandate permits are doing is no more than an entitlement program.

[mtantillo]

It is none of the minimum wage alcohol clerk's dang business where I live. I specifically take steps to avoid disclosing that information when in a bar or other such setting (by using my passport card as ID, which is a more legit form of ID than a driver's license IMO).

Workarounds would be fairly easy to devise--the purpose of the exercise is to discover taxing jurisdiction for purposes of recording the sale, not to collect personally identifiable information.

Lets say I am from Massachusetts. I am attending a dinner party in New Hampshire. I want to do the right thing and buy alcohol in the state in which it is to be consumed to avoid these arcane laws about bringing it across state lines. If the alcohol is purchased in New Hampshire, and consumed in New Hampshire, how could Massachusetts possibly claim any tax jurisdiction? Using your proposal, they would attempt to tax that as if it were bought in Massachusetts.

[J N Winkler]

Let's say I am from Massachusetts. I am attending a dinner party in New Hampshire. I want to do the right thing and buy alcohol in the state in which it is to be consumed to avoid these arcane laws about bringing it across state lines. If the alcohol is purchased in New Hampshire, and consumed in New Hampshire, how could Massachusetts possibly claim any tax jurisdiction? Using your proposal, they would attempt to tax that as if it were bought in Massachusetts.

This is where an individual purchaser would likely have to make a decision to accept the rough with the smooth.  Similar problems arise with sales tax, VAT, fuel and mileage proration, etc. and while they can be eased through rebate programs, there is a transaction cost both for the customer applying for rebates and for the state administering a rebate program.

One workaround (which does raise the social awkwardness of promising reimbursement in arrears rather than showing up at the door with the bottle of wine already in hand) is to have the NH hosts purchase the wine in NH.

[dfwmapper]

Another workaround is for the state to not tax certain items at such ridiculous rates that people actually make trips to avoid it.

[roadman]

A different kind of trap, one where the cops come find you:

Technically, it is illegal to bring alcohol into Massachusetts without a special permit. But enforcement is another story. In 1976, Massachusetts sent undercover agents to stake out New Hampshire liquor stores and record license plates of Massachusetts shoppers. New Hampshire police responded by briefly detaining the Massachusetts agents.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB125236461011390855

Maine has been reported to do the same in recent years.

What a crock. There is no customs or anything of that nature at the border between NH and MA. Reasonable quantity for personal use should not be illegal.

Massachusetts does make "reasonable personal use" exceptions regarding the tranportation of alcoholic beverages - from Mass General Laws Chapter 138, Section 22:

Any person may, but only for his own use and that of his family and guests, transport alcoholic beverages or alcohol, without any license or permit, but not exceeding in amount, at any one time, twenty gallons of malt beverages, three gallons of any other alcoholic beverage, or one gallon of alcohol, or their measured equivalent; provided, that any person may, without any license or permit, transport from his place of residence to a new place of residence established by him alcoholic beverages manufactured by him for his own private use

I would suspect that other states have similar laws on their books.