Driving cross country with expired tags - how to avoid police?

Dave Smith wrote:
Hatunen wrote:



I believe getting current tags usually involves paying
registration fees for the years tags weren't obtained, which in
some states and for some cars can amount to a fair piece of
money.

Sometimes it also involves safety certification or emissions testing. In
most states and provinces it would also require payment of outstanding
fines.

Anyone thinking about driving around with switched plates or expired plates
should be aware of the technology available to police officers and their on
board computers. The enforcement agency I worked for was not exactly at
the cutting edge of technology, but I could punch in a licence plate from
any Canadian province and US state and in 2-3 seconds it would display a
vehicle description and identify the owner. If it was a plate from this
province it would automatically display the owner's driver licence number
and was flagged if he was under suspension or currently unlicensed. For
commercial vehicles, the company's safety violation rate was immediately
displayed. There were all sorts of hyper linked fields to access driver
conviction records etc.

I assume you'd still have to do something to get the cop's attention in
order to prompt them to punch in the number. Unless they're literally
bringing up license plate info as they drive around "just for the fun
of it"...

A few years ago people could get away with playing dumb sometimes, but
these days it is not worth it.

On 18 Jul 2006 08:03:57 -0700, wrote:


I'm going to be driving from Washington, DC to northern Louisiana with
an LA license plate that expired a couple of years ago. Insurance and
driver's license are okay. Any suggestions about what route I should
take or how I can avoid getting pulled over?

Yeah -- send in the money and renew your plate before you start your trip!!!!


--
To reply by e-mail, remove the "restrictor plate"

SP Cook wrote:
wrote:
I'm going to be driving from Washington, DC to northern Louisiana with
an LA license plate that expired a couple of years ago. Insurance and
driver's license are okay.

No, you do not have any insurance. The company is justified in denying
coverage because driving without legal plates is a violation of the
statute, and thus voids any policy they have issued. Further, since
you do not apparently live in Louisiana, unless you have told the
company you have moved to DC, and thus paid the far higher premiums
that come with that, you have lied to the company and they again can
deny coverage.

Further, even if you have VALID Louisiana plates, 30 days after you
stopped living in Louisiana, they became void.

Go to the DC DMV, pay your taxes like every body else and get legal.

SP Cook

Good post. I didn't know a lot of that.

"SP Cook" wrote in message
ups.com...

wrote:
I'm going to be driving from Washington, DC to northern Louisiana with
an LA license plate that expired a couple of years ago. Insurance and
driver's license are okay.

No, you do not have any insurance. The company is justified in denying
coverage because driving without legal plates is a violation of the
statute, and thus voids any policy they have issued. Further, since
you do not apparently live in Louisiana, unless you have told the
company you have moved to DC, and thus paid the far higher premiums
that come with that, you have lied to the company and they again can
deny coverage.

Further, even if you have VALID Louisiana plates, 30 days after you
stopped living in Louisiana, they became void.

Go to the DC DMV, pay your taxes like every body else and get legal.

Ha ha ha. Yes, DC's DMV should be fun. Their DMV is the worst or close to it
from what I've heard. Enjoy. /sarcasm


SP Cook

wrote:
Any suggestions about what route I should
take or how I can avoid getting pulled over?

You can avoid being pulled over by having valid tags (which means your
car passes safety and is registered where you live). Or by renting and
towing your vehicle.

My mom bought a new car (Canada) and her tags expired, not sure how she
overlooked that, but they were only a few weeks out of date. $78 fine
and a day in court (that she had to take off work). Do you want to have
to deal with that crap if you're passing through a town/state you're
never going to go back to?

Let me put it this way, I drove 4200 miles in a rental this past June.
I did NOT speed. Why? Because the ticket would be a bitch, and I
wouldn't be able to fight it. They love to ticket out of state vehicles
for anything they can, because they know you're not going to return to
fight it. Not sure what they do if you just don't pay... but there's a
high probability you'll get more than just a ticket for having expired
plates, like uh, you won't be driving that vehicle for a while.

My two cents.
S.

wrote in message

I want to know 4 things:

I'm going to be driving from Washington, DC to northern Louisiana with
an LA license plate that expired a couple of years ago.

1. Why?

Insurance and driver's license are okay.

2. Who underwrites insurance on an unregistered car on public roads with
illegal plates?

3. Are you a troll?

4. If you're "bright enough" to think up this plan, how do you think you'll
be able to find your way to Louisiana?

On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 13:09:34 -0700, Hatunen wrote:
I believe getting current tags usually involves paying
registration fees for the years tags weren't obtained, which in
some states and for some cars can amount to a fair piece of
money.

Only fair, as those fees help to maintain the roads the deadbeat with
the expired plates has been using.

Mike Tantillo wrote:
I assume you'd still have to do something to get the cop's attention in
order to prompt them to punch in the number. Unless they're literally
bringing up license plate info as they drive around "just for the fun
of it"...

Doesn't Louisiana use renewal stickers? (I thought all 50 states did?)

Around here, (Tennessee) when you first get your plate they put a
sticker on it, showing what month it expires - it might say "JUL" in
large letters. You get another sticker that might say "2006", showing
that it expires at the end of July, 2006. When you renew, you get a
sticker that says "2007", you stick it over the top of "2006" to show
the plate is valid for another year. The procedure is identical in
Wisconsin.

An officer doesn't have to get very close to be able to read both
stickers, and if he does he knows the plate is (or isn't) expired. He
doesn't have to run it through the computer to know.

--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

On 18 Jul 2006 08:03:57 -0700, wrote:


I'm going to be driving from Washington, DC to northern Louisiana with
an LA license plate that expired a couple of years ago. Insurance and
driver's license are okay.

How can you insure a car with expired plates?

--
Barbara Vaughan

My email address is my first initial followed by my last name at libero dot it.

On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 19:28:17 -0400, "Paul S. Wolf"
wrote:

On 7/18/2006 11:03 AM, wrote:
I'm going to be driving from Washington, DC to northern Louisiana with
an LA license plate that expired a couple of years ago. Insurance and
driver's license are okay.

If the car isn't currently registered, then the insurance is probably
void, too.

I've never been able to get insurance without showing a valid
registration.

--
Barbara Vaughan

My email address is my first initial followed by my last name at libero dot it.