Expired vehicle registration, possibly no insurance?

[ZLoth]

I was browsing my local NextDoor, and saw this post:

I'm actually shocked about how often I see vehicle registration stickers expired, not by a month or two, but by YEARS. 2,3,4 years. I even just saw one yesterday expired April 2018. I can only assume that all these vehicles are also not insured, which only screws anyone they happen to get into an accident with. How can people be so irresponsible? They seem to get away with it. I'm also surprised that they don't suspend the owner's license or tow the vehicle in the interim as a way to make people keep their registrations and inspections up to date. And I'm sorry, I don't wanna hear about financial hardships. If you injure or kill someone, the victim's insurance is not supposed to just pick up the tab, which then forces the victim to file suit against someone they won't collect from anyway. There really needs to be more of an enforcement effort to get people to comply or get their vehicles off the road.

This fustrates me as I'm was taught that if you want the "freedoms" of adulthood, you also have to deal with the "responsibilities" of adulthood as well. Driving, after all, is a privilege, not a right. Unfortunately, we live in a society where people strive to "work the system" to their advantage to the detriment of others. If you can't afford to responsibilities of owning a car, perhaps your life should resolve around utilizing the public transit systems... as inconvenient as it may be to you in our car-centric nation. In comparison to some other states (cough... California... cough), the cost of vehicle registration here in Texas isn't that bad especially since the "property value" of the vehicle isn't taxed. Before I relocated to Texas, I had ordered Toll Tags and had them on our vehicles prior to the drive to Texas as the tolls are 50% when billed by plate.

I remember watching the show Parking Wars and know (at the time of the show's production which was at least ten years ago) Philadelphia has a "live stop" program. If a law enforcement officer pulls you over and you are unable to produce a valid drivers license, current vehicle registration, and current proof of insurance, they will impound and tow away your vehicle. You then have to show up in traffic court, pay the fines, and make sure everything is current prior to the release of your vehicle.

[hotdogPi]

On my walks, I notice that about 1 in 100 registration stickers are expired and about 1 in 100 have no front plate when one is required. I don't check inspection stickers.

1 in 100 is typically several on a one-hour walk.

[Ted$8roadFan]

Some state and local governments are more vigilant than others in going after scofflaws. I wonder if this is less of a problem in states that require annual inspections where a vehicle has to be examined.

[CtrlAltDel]

I was browsing my local NextDoor, and saw this post:

I'm actually shocked about how often I see vehicle registration stickers expired, not by a month or two, but by YEARS. 2,3,4 years. I even just saw one yesterday expired April 2018. I can only assume that all these vehicles are also not insured, which only screws anyone they happen to get into an accident with. How can people be so irresponsible? They seem to get away with it. I'm also surprised that they don't suspend the owner's license or tow the vehicle in the interim as a way to make people keep their registrations and inspections up to date. And I'm sorry, I don't wanna hear about financial hardships. If you injure or kill someone, the victim's insurance is not supposed to just pick up the tab, which then forces the victim to file suit against someone they won't collect from anyway. There really needs to be more of an enforcement effort to get people to comply or get their vehicles off the road.

Yeah, it's the same in College Station. It seems that this isn't really something Texas cares to enforce too strictly for one reason or another. I couldn't tell you why. Same with the front license plate.

[hotdogPi]

but who are you victimizing by having a fake tag? Your local beaurocracy?

If you saw someone commit a crime and drive off, you would probably want to jot down their plate number as they drive away and then notify the police.

[Rothman]

My first reaction was, "Mind your own business."  Got to renew my inspection and registration next month...

[MultiMillionMiler]

Fair enough, but I would probably just take a picture of the car. I once saw a license plate that had only one digit different from my own, and plenty of cars that had 4-5 out of 7 digits the same, so you have to remember all the digits. And as far as insurance goes, if you are deemed at fault for a serious accident from negligent driving on your part, you can be criminally charged.

[SectorZ]

Who gives a fuck? Who are they hurting? All of those requirements are money grabs, nothing else. I will forever root for the toll cheaters and people who drive with fake plates. Driving should be a right, not a privilege. Parking wars was a funny show I was watching it for a while and while I am usually on the side of the parking officers, the impound people couldn't be any more condescending. Other countries you don't need insurance and can literally just pay a small fee for a license. America literally criminalizes you for using your car. Going 60 in a school zone, yes you should be fined, but who are you victimizing by having a fake tag? Your local beaurocracy?

Who are they hurting? In a perfect vacuum, no one.

However, one of those uninsured people nails your car or worse, you, and you don't have coverage for your own damages (which is voluntary), well I can guarantee the uninsured aren't the rich "self-insuring". And there is a pretty strong correlation between "not responsible enough to have auto insurance" and "not responsible enough to not drive like an asshole". 

Driving is between a right and a privilege. You have a right to the privilege, where in the privilege becomes a right if you can 1) prove you can safely drive a car and 2) prove you can cover damages you may potentially cause to others (in the form of insurance). It's pretty straightforward.

I agree with you that things like registration fees are bullshit. You should be able to register a vehicle once and let it stay for life. The problem, and again I know this from direct experience working in insurance, in states like Massachusetts they use your registration renewal as a flag against you for all manner of unpaid fines and other things. Every registration in the state's registry (which auto adjusters, agents, and underwriters all have access to) will flag a registration as either renewable or nonrenewable. This is unfortunately my wish will never come true, because instead of addressing the problems head on they just wait until renewal and spring it on the auto owner at that point.

Inspection stickers in my state, the law on expired ones is so loosely enforced (due to claims of equity per multiple sources in multiple parts of this field) that we may as well not have an inspection system. I've got a car up the street from me that has a sticker that expired in 2017 but would never pass inspection because it's so modified that its wheels are at the same angle as a wheelchair racing rig. Now, you can't tell me that vehicle isn't at higher risk of causing an accident than a properly inspected one.

[jp the roadgeek]

CT doesn't have registration stickers anymore.  It's a matter of police being able to read the RFID chip in your license plate. 

[MultiMillionMiler]

Same for license renewal. If it was about safety, they'd have you retake your driver's test or something but not have a fee. Registration tags can theoretically help catch criminals as there's some trail left by the vehicle, but the renewing I agree, sounds like bullshit. Even traffic violations you could make the same argument, have license points that cumulate in a suspension/revocation, but no fine.

[bandit957]

What I find to be a problem is the lack of a license plate.

The insurance I don't care about, since it's such a rip-off.

[bandit957]

CT doesn't have registration stickers anymore.  It's a matter of police being able to read the RFID chip in your license plate.

Now this RFID business is a huge problem, and it has to stop.

[hbelkins]

It's possible that the registration sticker has fallen off, but they have a valid registration.

This happened to me once. The sticker didn't adhere well to the plate and ended up falling off. I got pulled over by the police coming home from work one night for expired registration. I showed the cop the valid registration receipt and told him what happened. I didn't get a ticket, but I was advised to go to the county clerk's office and get a replacement sticker. I did, and it cost me about 10 bucks or so.

Several years ago, Kentucky went away from color-coded registration stickers, which made it easy to spot an expired tag. Now all the stickers are gray, so you have to actually look at the month number to see if the registration is valid.

[jeffandnicole]

In NJ vehicles older than 1993 or thereabouts don't need to be inspected anymore, and they don't require the owner to take off the old inspection sticker, so occasionally those older vehicles will have expired stickers but don't need to be inspected. We don't have separate registration stickers, and as long as they current registration is valid,  even if it expires in the same month when the car is inspected it will pass inspection for that.

[ZLoth]

However, one of those uninsured people nails your car or worse, you, and you don't have coverage for your own damages (which is voluntary), well I can guarantee the uninsured aren't the rich "self-insuring". And there is a pretty strong correlation between "not responsible enough to have auto insurance" and "not responsible enough to not drive like an asshole".

There is too much truth in this statement.

Driving is between a right and a privilege. You have a right to the privilege, where in the privilege becomes a right if you can 1) prove you can safely drive a car and 2) prove you can cover damages you may potentially cause to others (in the form of insurance). It's pretty straightforward.

I agree with you that things like registration fees are bullshit. You should be able to register a vehicle once and let it stay for life. The problem, and again I know this from direct experience working in insurance, in states like Massachusetts they use your registration renewal as a flag against you for all manner of unpaid fines and other things. Every registration in the state's registry (which auto adjusters, agents, and underwriters all have access to) will flag a registration as either renewable or nonrenewable. This is unfortunately my wish will never come true, because instead of addressing the problems head on they just wait until renewal and spring it on the auto owner at that point.

For the state of Texas, "100 percent of your base registration fee goes directly to the State Highway Fund for the construction and maintenance of the state's transportation system.", and my county adds in a $10 fee for maintenance of county bridges. And, yes, if you have unpaid tolls on your NTTA account, you have to get that squared away prior to renewing your registration.

It's possible that the registration sticker has fallen off, but they have a valid registration.

This happened to me once. The sticker didn't adhere well to the plate and ended up falling off. I got pulled over by the police coming home from work one night for expired registration. I showed the cop the valid registration receipt and told him what happened. I didn't get a ticket, but I was advised to go to the county clerk's office and get a replacement sticker. I did, and it cost me about 10 bucks or so.

Texas is one of those states that has a registration sticker in the corner of the driver's windshield. So, unless you are TERRIBLE at cleaning the windshield, it's a matter of pealing off the old sticker, clean the windshield, and putting on a new sticker.

[hbelkins]

It's possible that the registration sticker has fallen off, but they have a valid registration.

This happened to me once. The sticker didn't adhere well to the plate and ended up falling off. I got pulled over by the police coming home from work one night for expired registration. I showed the cop the valid registration receipt and told him what happened. I didn't get a ticket, but I was advised to go to the county clerk's office and get a replacement sticker. I did, and it cost me about 10 bucks or so.

Texas is one of those states that has a registration sticker in the corner of the driver's windshield. So, unless you are TERRIBLE at cleaning the windshield, it's a matter of pealing off the old sticker, clean the windshield, and putting on a new sticker.

Kentucky no longer requires any windshield sticker. When I was growing up, Kentucky had annual vehicle inspections and you had to display the inspection sticker in your front windshield. Sometime in the 1970s, Kentucky quit requiring inspections and instead required proof of insurance stickers in your back window. In the 1980s, Kentucky did away with insurance stickers in favor of cards to be carried in the vehicle.

Registration renewal stickers are placed directly on the license plate.

[bandit957]

Sometime in the 1970s, Kentucky quit requiring inspections and instead required proof of insurance stickers in your back window.

I remember these. They had the make, model, and year of the car.

I also remember the stickers on the license plates in the late '70s/early '80s that were color-coded by year.

[hotdogPi]

I also remember the stickers on the license plates in the late '70s/early '80s that were color-coded by year.

I'm so used to Massachusetts making it obvious (stickers are colored on a 5-year cycle, so it's obvious except that the blue and green are too close together in hue) that I don't think of it any other way despite seeing a whole bunch of New Hampshire plates where this isn't the case.

Maine appears to color their stickers in a manner similar to Massachusetts, but the colors usually don't line up with Massachusetts's colors.

[bandit957]

Another thing I remember is each county in Kentucky got batches of license plates with consecutive sets of letters. Around 1980, Campbell County had a bunch of plates starting with 'A'. I think Kenton County had 'C', but I'm not sure.

In the late '80s/early '90s, I remember plates in Campbell County starting with 'VA', then 'VB', then 'VC', etc.

[MATraveler128]

I just renewed my registration early which was due to expire in April. My previous sticker was a red 2023 sticker and my new one is an orange 2025 sticker. I wonder if police ever mix up red/orange as with green/blue.

[SectorZ]

I just renewed my registration early which was due to expire in April. My previous sticker was a red 2023 sticker and my new one is an orange 2025 sticker. I wonder if police ever mix up red/orange as with green/blue.

I know I've told this story before here, 30 years ago there was a year where Connecticut stickers from a year earlier was the same color as the current year Massachusetts stickers. A CT state trooper pulled my father over on I-84 for an expired sticker, not smart enough to realize what state was involved.

[Flint1979]

Michigan's for 2024 is an aqua color, 2023 is orange, 2022 was yellow, 2021 was white.

[US 89]

Utah has used two stickers on the rear license plate, a month and a year, for as far back as I can remember. The year sticker is on a four-year color rotation: 2023 is green, 2024 will be red, 2025 blue, and 2026 yellow. The month sticker never changes, and ideally you'd never touch it after you put it on...but they unfortunately tend to fade in the sun, so if you have your car long enough you'll probably have to replace it at least once if you park facing north often.

There also used to be a third sticker containing a 2-letter code for the county of registration. Those haven't been used in forever.

[Ted$8roadFan]

Re registration stickers, I think in Massachusetts, there is a 5 or 6-year period between the use of the same color (i.e. a blue sticker for a 2018 expiration won't be used again until 2024 or so). 

[hotdogPi]

Re registration stickers, I think in Massachusetts, there is a 5 or 6-year period between the use of the same color (i.e. a blue sticker for a 2018 expiration won't be used again until 2024 or so).

It's 5 years.

0, 5: orange
1, 6: yellow
2, 7: green
3, 8: red
4, 9: blue