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

On 19 Jul 2006 08:15:17 -0700, Pete from Boston wrote:

This would imply that every car must be registered every year it
exists, whether in storage, on the road, or whatever. What state has
these laws?

In Kentucky, to the best of my knowledge. registration is required only if the
car is driven on the public highways. Payment of taxes is required, however,
each year the car is owned unless it is junked.

My dad still pays taxes (about $3 a year) on a POS old 70's-model pickup he uses
as a farm truck to haul brush off to the brushpile and stuff like that. He
doesn't register it, though, because it hasn't been off his property in 10 years
or more.


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

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



I have paid to insure my car for 2 years without a
registration........I love the car, intend to put it back on the road
but for now just need the insurance to protect from falling trees,
vandals, etc......



Chuck

I think you'll have to bend a knee at California Department of Motor
Vehicles *anyway* in order to re-register such a car at your
destination, so you'd might as well proactively talk with them about a
Temporary Operating Permit for your window (see Chapter 25 of
http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs/reg_hdbk_pdf/index.pdf).

This might take some supervisory intervention and/or kindness above and
beyond the call of duty, since *two* years have gone by without either
regular or Planned Non-Operation registration with California, nor
registration in the state where it now sits so that it could be
imported to California. This may keep it from fitting really cleanly
into the usual Temporary Operating Permit pigeonholes.

However, I can't imagine that it's a unique or even all that unusual
problem, either -- just a slightly advanced problem rather than
something that every employee sees every day. Car blows up out of
state and it takes you a couple of years to get the money together to
fix it; lend a car to a friend or relative and forget about renewing
the tags; bet these are just a couple of the possible scenarios and
that they happen often enough. Talk to them and see what the "right"
way to do this is.

I'd also want to have the title or other proof of ownership tucked into
my suitcase on a cross-country trip with anything off-normal about the
plates. If it isn't your car (this part was not clear), this might be
especially useful; additionally have contact information for the
owner. Being able to show this stuff to the trooper in the field might
spare you one of those "let's take a ride to the station and let the
lieutenant figure it out" scenarios.

Best of luck,
--Joe

John F. Carr wrote:
Having valid tags does not prevent police from pulling you over.

Yeah, but you gotta do something to get pulled over... I should have
clarified it prevents him from being pulled over for expired tags.

I've never been pulled over (they never had a reason to). Sometimes you
get pulled over for something you didn't know was wrong, like having a
light out.

And sometimes they probably pull someone over because they feel like
it, driving around suspiciously in a known drug-neighbourhood kind of
thing. That's never happened to me either, even when I've been
hopelessly lost somewhere, and trying to read addresses or street names.

wrote:
Really? That's really more of a urban legend. Hundreds of thousands
of cars are always travelling in states different from their home
state. A cop, looking for speeders, is not looking at tags. If a cop
zaps someone going too fast, he's going to go after the speeder,
regardless of the state on the tag.

I just hope you stayed in the right lane out of everyone else's way as
you freaked out hoping the cops wouldn't come after you for "anything
they can".

Everyone says that's very common in Medford-Ashland area in Oregon.
It's the one thing everyone in Oregon, California and this group warned
me about, not to try and challenge the speed limits. (And that they
like out of state violators to give tickets to.)

Sapphyre wrote:
John F. Carr wrote:

Having valid tags does not prevent police from pulling you over.


Yeah, but you gotta do something to get pulled over... I should have
clarified it prevents him from being pulled over for expired tags.

I've never been pulled over (they never had a reason to). Sometimes you
get pulled over for something you didn't know was wrong, like having a
light out.

There are good cops and bad cops on that. I was in the car for my
friend's blown light, and had a good cop. A bad cop will run your
plates and search your car...

And sometimes they probably pull someone over because they feel like
it, driving around suspiciously in a known drug-neighbourhood kind of
thing. That's never happened to me either, even when I've been
hopelessly lost somewhere, and trying to read addresses or street names.

Just happened to me - I was driving home at 2 AM and didn't know which
way the Parkway was (imagine, a roadgeek not knowing where he was), and
instantly stopped on suspected DUI. Well, maybe it scared me to be more
awake for the rest of my drive...

--
Steve Alpert
MIT - B.S. (Eng.) '05, M.S. (Transp.) '06
http://web.mit.edu/smalpert/www/roads

Steve wrote:
Just happened to me - I was driving home at 2 AM and didn't know which
way the Parkway was (imagine, a roadgeek not knowing where he was), and
instantly stopped on suspected DUI. Well, maybe it scared me to be more
awake for the rest of my drive...

I used to work at a bar, and I was waiting for the day I'd get pulled
over for a random check (driving home at 3:30 a.m., and there are a lot
of DUI's around here, if the police were out in full force... they'd
catch a bunch every weekend).

I made some comment about how I was waiting for the day the cops pulled
me over to check... because of my job. Some guy said, "if you're
worried, you should stop drinking and driving." (Um, yeah, after I
finish counting the money, I go out and grab myself a few cold ones for
the trip home.)

S.

On 19 Jul 2006 08:15:17 -0700, "Pete from Boston"
wrote:


Hatunen wrote:
On 18 Jul 2006 12:48:06 -0700, "
wrote:

I used to live next door to a cop. He told me once that tags that are
seriously out of date raise a giant red flag to any cop who sees them.

Call your local Bureau of Motor Vehicles and they'll tell you how to
get up-to-date tags. Driving with tags that old isn't worth the risk.

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.

This would imply that every car must be registered every year it
exists, whether in storage, on the road, or whatever. What state has
these laws?

In Arizona the MVD has a special registration for cars that
aren't going to be driven.

************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

H.B. Elkins wrote:
On 19 Jul 2006 11:32:18 GMT, John F. Carr wrote:

In article .com,
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"...

I used keep a scanner in the car (legal where I live so long as you are able
to get the weather/ emergency frequencies and do not chase calls or discuss
anything you hear with anyone who does did hear the info on the radio with
you). This was back before digital terminals in all the police cars and they
used to do all their business over the radio.

I was surprised at how often a cop would run my plates... One night one even
followed me home while he was waiting for the reply (10 - 10, RO lives
at...) from the dispatcher.

Looking back it was probably because I drive a mustang and at the time it
was one of the hottest models for theft.

I would assume out of state/province plates would attract a little more
attention and could potentially get run a few times in the course of a long
distance trip.

H.B. Elkins wrote:

Try driving through Summersville, WV with out-of-state tags. A front
plate is a dead giveaway there.

I did. They never bothered me...

Yeah, but how fast did you drive? ;-)

Fast enough to where they would have pulled me over if their reputation
as portrayed by our West Virginia members is true...

Froggie | Picayune, MS | http://www.ajfroggie.com/roads/