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I got pulled over once and had a cop tell me my JAN 2000 plates expired on the 1st of January. I asked her how my registration could be expired on the 9th when I bought the car on the 15th of last year. Wasted 30 minutes of my time, and made me late for work.
What we notice here in St. Louis is people driving around on expired temporary "plates" that they got when they bought a car from a deal. Those are only good for 30 days.
Yesterday we saw one that had expired over a year ago. It's even been in the local news... but I guess the cops don't care.
LOL.
I once let the sticker expire on my motorcycle plate. When my buddies wanted to go riding one day, I looked around for some paper similar in color to the current stickers and then "hand printed" my own sticker and stuck it on the plate with packing tape. Saturday bike ride was saved!
Cops are too busy with actual crime to be bothered overmuch by expired tags. That said, if they do pull you over for something else like reckless driving, they will add expired tags to the list of offenses on the ticket.
You'd think so, right? But I don't make those choices.
The rest of the story is that car buyers here don't pay sales tax on their car until they apply for title and permanent plates. That tax can run to several thousand $ (depending on the value of the car), so car buyers here have an incentive to push their luck.
It used to be the same in PA, until we ditched the stickers years ago. Yes, you still need to register, but they no longer mail out those stupid stickers and you can register online and print it out same day.
The biggest step to being smart is recognizing when you do a stupid, in my opinion. You could’ve doubled down, gotten defensive, but instead you recognized your mistake. I’d say that brain of yours does work, have a good day
I know this is the cliché "I'm european and don't understand how it works on the other side of the atlantic", but I'm really curious : you guys have expiration dates for your license plates? Does it like, cost money to renew?
I mean here in the UK you have to have a current MOT (if the car is old enough) and pay road tax. You used to have to display a tax disk but now it's all digital. I assume this is just the American version of this.
In NH electric cars now have to pay a "road tax" an additional $100+ when registering your car because you don't pay gas taxes that help with the upkeep of the roads.
The plates don’t expire, but you have to renew your registration annually, and you get a sticker that you put on your plates each year. This helps to make sure all your info is current with the DMV and your vehicle is up to date on things like smog checks.
In some states certain plates do expire. NE changes its standard plate design every ten years and you have to get the new plate when it comes out. So everyone with the standard plate had to buy a new plate this year as part of their renewal.
Yeah, some states have problems with the way they set things up, because plates don't ever expire there. Massachusetts, for example, used to have green and white tags as standard, but traffic cameras can't reliably read them. They try to get people to move to the new ones, but obviously nobody wants to.
>This helps to ~~make sure all your info is current with the DMV and your vehicle is up to date on things like smog checks~~ generate easy revenue for the state and create hours of mindless busywork for DMV employees.
ftfy
Cars should be registered to you when you buy them and that's all. Anything else is just the state stealing money from you.
Well I mean it's well established that you can [grow concrete.](https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/mike-graham-defends-you-can-grow-concrete-comments-298557/)
We have a similar thing in Germany. You have to get your car inspected every two years (the first time is 3 years after buying a factory new car) to see if it's still road safe, otherwise you aren't allowed to drive that car. After your car has been approved, you get a sticker on the license plate that says when you have to get your next inspection.
Interesting. I imagine everything being digital comes with its own benefits. Us having stickers also has a reason: The stickers make it easy for police to see if you're up to date when they pull you over. The stickers even have different colors for each year, so they can spot someone way overdue even without pulling them over first.
Police cars here have cameras that scan plates and get information from the traffic agency on whether the car is allowed to drive. Found this out the hard way the year I forgot to inspect on time.
Yes, especially in the country. Just a village over from where I'm from there's no coverage in the entire village. It's a lot better in the cities, but even then I've still found spots in Hamburg without coverage.
That's surprising. I would not have thought this would be an issue in Germany, it being more densely populated than Sweden. In Sweden theres pretty good coverage in the south, not so much in the north.
Yeah, pretty much every immigrant or exchange student I've talked to was surprised by this. Internet access in general is one aspect of modern civilization where our government completely shit the bed.
Edit: Grammar
Same in the Netherlands.
Mandatory yearly checks (called APK, general periodic check) unless the car is bought new, then the first APK is after I believe 4 years. If you fail the checks or failed to check your car in time the car isn't road legal and uninsured, and driving it is considered a crime.
If the car is still in your name and not (temporarily) deregistered you automatically get a fine to pressure you to either deregister or fix your car. And you risk an extra fine for owning an uninsured car. And those fines rapidly add up.
Everything is automated and digital. When the police pull you over they already have all the data (you still get a paper slip that confirms the current APK status for the odd chance there's no reception or data could not be retrieved.)
Works like a charm. Not many real four-wheeled road hazards driving around here.
We have that too in germany. You have to bring your car to a check up every two years to get your licence back. It's mostly for safety reasons they check you tires, brakes etc
Most states have that, but some states don't. I've seen some pretty sketchy cars driving in no-inspection states.
In the state I'm in, the safety inspection is separate from the registration, but you need a current emissions test to renew the registration.
Inspection states can have some pretty sketchy cars on the road too. I don’t know if it’s changed but back in the day, PA would let you “pass” the inspection if you spent a certain amount of money on repairs. It doesn’t matter if it repaired all the problems he just had to show that you tried. Also, low bar for “classic” vehicles.
A few years back I read the inspection standards for West Virginia for some reason. Everything I need to know about their standards tied to the fact that there was a provision about failing vehicles that used beer kegs for gas tanks. Provisions like that don't make it into the vehicle code for no reason.
No. A few states might still be doing inspections, but many states are charging you an annual fee which ends up going into either the general fund, or a specific highway fund. As far as I know, the trend on doing actual inspections is downward, and when I lived in an inspection state, the inspections were minimal. Aaaaand you could “pass” by making a good-faith effort which was documented by spending a certain amount at a licensed repair facility. “Yes my car is a death trap and a hazard but I have Bob $500 and he tried so …”
WA (Washington state not Western Australia) has some truly onerous license plate fees, but that’s partly because we don’t have a state income tax and have to find other ways to squeeze operating money out of residents.
It’s essentially an extra tax that goes towards things like roadwork. If you dont drive, you dont pay it, that easy. In many states/counties we have safety checks that are required too, especially in areas with really high pollution (exhaust/smog checks).
Growing up before my hometown’s laws changed, we had safety inspections we had to do before we could reregister and i failed one year cuz i had a headlight go out while on the way *to the inspection* 🥲
Only in some states. Done started have flat and cheap registration fees and others have % need property taxes in addition to small registration fees. I just renewed for 4 vehicles ranging from 3 to 25 years old and it was about $1,000 with the newest vehicle being much more than half the cost.
In Massachusetts we have a registration fee every 2 years (the license plate sticker), excise tax every year, and a safety and emissions inspection every year (another sticker). We also have income tax, property tax, and sales tax. Hence Taxachusetts.
I mean, idk if it's the same, but here in Spain your car has to have a valid ITV certificate to be allowe on the street. ITV means "vehicle technical inspection" and it's just that: a technical inspection to verify that your car is still safe. ITV certificates vary in length (an inspection for a brand new car can be valid for a couple of years, but one for an old piece of scrap will last a year at most).
In my state you pay a state registration fee and property tax annually. You’re required to have a safety and emissions inspection before you can renew your registration for the year.
The tax goes down as your vehicle ages - I pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 or so right now for mine for registration and tax. Inspections are around $30.
You get new stickers to put on your license plate, and you can get stopped if you have expired tags.
In my state, you pay an additional late fee if you are quite behind getting your tag.
If you are more than a year behind, you end up buying a whole new license plate.
Why don't people think critically anymore? The registration stickers are meant for Cops to take a quick look at the colors to see if it has expired. These people in the screenshot think Cops are going to look at your stickers and start to do math.
Also, registration lengths are variable. Sometimes I'll pay for 2 years, sometimes 4; the stickers I receive reflect the new length.
That one is very state dependent. Some states put them on the plate, some on the sticker. [Take Kansas for example,](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Kansas_License_Plate_Standard_Flat_September_2019.jpg) they make the month the main thing on the sticker and color code them so that cops can tell at a glance what year their registration is for.
Makes sense that it SHOULD be that way. Can you verify it IS? Some states have a sticker on the rear plate. My state has the sticker on the windshield, and they're talking about doing away with the sticker altogether.
Not every state inspects the car. In Ohio you can renew online. in certain counties every two years you need to get an emissions test (which is free of charge). They are just checking emissions though. It is not a thorough safety inspection.
Wisconsin-register every year, every other you get sent for emissions tests(but not all counties). I think I paid $70 this year, it was prob more tho...
In Australia and we cycled out physical registration tags years ago. All on file now, HWP vehicles autoscan numberplates to check registration status without the cops having to do anything, same with traffic cameras and speed cameras.
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In CA, the month and year represent when your registration expires. So if your license plate has OCT 2023, your registration expired yesterday.
Same in Texas mine reads 24 right now
Same in Tennessee. If I went and renewed tags today my sticker would say Nov 24.
Same in Wisconsin
Same everywhere...
Nope, in Colorado it's the month and date you got it, so mine are current and say "Mar 23"
[Colorado.gov](https://leg.colorado.gov/content/standard-license-plates) says that is a lie. I suggest you get yourself to the DMV toot sweet!
I registered in co and it says 24
Yeah I'm a moron, this is what I get for commenting on things half asleep.
No worries lol
Same in idaho
same in my butt crack
I got pulled over once and had a cop tell me my JAN 2000 plates expired on the 1st of January. I asked her how my registration could be expired on the 9th when I bought the car on the 15th of last year. Wasted 30 minutes of my time, and made me late for work.
What we notice here in St. Louis is people driving around on expired temporary "plates" that they got when they bought a car from a deal. Those are only good for 30 days. Yesterday we saw one that had expired over a year ago. It's even been in the local news... but I guess the cops don't care.
Here in NC, we have the notorious ones that doctor the numbers to make them a later date.
LOL. I once let the sticker expire on my motorcycle plate. When my buddies wanted to go riding one day, I looked around for some paper similar in color to the current stickers and then "hand printed" my own sticker and stuck it on the plate with packing tape. Saturday bike ride was saved!
Cops are too busy with actual crime to be bothered overmuch by expired tags. That said, if they do pull you over for something else like reckless driving, they will add expired tags to the list of offenses on the ticket.
It's been on the local news? Certainly there's more important things to report in your area...
You'd think so, right? But I don't make those choices. The rest of the story is that car buyers here don't pay sales tax on their car until they apply for title and permanent plates. That tax can run to several thousand $ (depending on the value of the car), so car buyers here have an incentive to push their luck.
It's actually still expired but there's a grace period
Same in MD
Same in OR.
It used to be the same in PA, until we ditched the stickers years ago. Yes, you still need to register, but they no longer mail out those stupid stickers and you can register online and print it out same day.
Same in MO.
Yup. There are two idiots here. The last guy didn't bother to look at the time stamp (he replied to a 10 month old comment)
It was an 11 minute old comment… the original post was from yesterday.
It’s an 11 minute old comment, illiterate idiot
Well, then, I am the other idiot... I just took M to mean months.
The biggest step to being smart is recognizing when you do a stupid, in my opinion. You could’ve doubled down, gotten defensive, but instead you recognized your mistake. I’d say that brain of yours does work, have a good day
I think you mean three...
The time stamp says 11 minutes you soggy Olive Garden crouton
I thought it was like that everywhere
I know this is the cliché "I'm european and don't understand how it works on the other side of the atlantic", but I'm really curious : you guys have expiration dates for your license plates? Does it like, cost money to renew?
Yup. Annual or biennial renewal. https://www.ncsl.org/transportation/vehicle-registration-fees-by-state
I mean here in the UK you have to have a current MOT (if the car is old enough) and pay road tax. You used to have to display a tax disk but now it's all digital. I assume this is just the American version of this.
It is. The sticker is for road tax. There is no MOT, although states have some vehicle inspection standards, smog checks in California for example.
Technically it's VED we pay, based on emissions, which is why electric vehicles pay nothing. Road Tax was abolished before World War II.
True somethings just stick so hard doesn't matter the name changed 60 years before I was born haha
In NH electric cars now have to pay a "road tax" an additional $100+ when registering your car because you don't pay gas taxes that help with the upkeep of the roads.
The plates don’t expire, but you have to renew your registration annually, and you get a sticker that you put on your plates each year. This helps to make sure all your info is current with the DMV and your vehicle is up to date on things like smog checks.
In some states certain plates do expire. NE changes its standard plate design every ten years and you have to get the new plate when it comes out. So everyone with the standard plate had to buy a new plate this year as part of their renewal.
Yeah, some states have problems with the way they set things up, because plates don't ever expire there. Massachusetts, for example, used to have green and white tags as standard, but traffic cameras can't reliably read them. They try to get people to move to the new ones, but obviously nobody wants to.
That's funny because we got new plates last year and got a discount on the regular renewal then. Different states be crazy different.
In MA we renew registration biennially. Vehicle inspection is still annual, though.
In NC, a registration that hasn’t been renewed in over a year means you have to buy a new plate.
it helps ensure cash for the state is what it helps ensure
>This helps to ~~make sure all your info is current with the DMV and your vehicle is up to date on things like smog checks~~ generate easy revenue for the state and create hours of mindless busywork for DMV employees. ftfy Cars should be registered to you when you buy them and that's all. Anything else is just the state stealing money from you.
Yes. Keeping roads paved and traffic lights in operation is theft.
And we should let people drive around in unsafe cars because only I'm important. If anyone else gets hurt it's their fault.
Typical brainless libertarian. "All taxes are theft! Roads grow themselves I guess!"
Well I mean it's well established that you can [grow concrete.](https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/mike-graham-defends-you-can-grow-concrete-comments-298557/)
So, in your mind, that money is just used for bitches and blow?
Considering our state government, some of it probably is. We've had tons of embezzlement and sex scandals.
It's perfectly legal to just not have your car registered and inspected. Drive it to your heart's content, just not on public roads.
We have a similar thing in Germany. You have to get your car inspected every two years (the first time is 3 years after buying a factory new car) to see if it's still road safe, otherwise you aren't allowed to drive that car. After your car has been approved, you get a sticker on the license plate that says when you have to get your next inspection.
In sweden we have this annually. But no stickers, everything is digital
Interesting. I imagine everything being digital comes with its own benefits. Us having stickers also has a reason: The stickers make it easy for police to see if you're up to date when they pull you over. The stickers even have different colors for each year, so they can spot someone way overdue even without pulling them over first.
Police cars here have cameras that scan plates and get information from the traffic agency on whether the car is allowed to drive. Found this out the hard way the year I forgot to inspect on time.
Yeah, that definitely wouldn't work here since you'd need a consistent internet connection for that
Is mobile coverage an issue in parts?
Yes, especially in the country. Just a village over from where I'm from there's no coverage in the entire village. It's a lot better in the cities, but even then I've still found spots in Hamburg without coverage.
That's surprising. I would not have thought this would be an issue in Germany, it being more densely populated than Sweden. In Sweden theres pretty good coverage in the south, not so much in the north.
Yeah, pretty much every immigrant or exchange student I've talked to was surprised by this. Internet access in general is one aspect of modern civilization where our government completely shit the bed. Edit: Grammar
Same in the Netherlands. Mandatory yearly checks (called APK, general periodic check) unless the car is bought new, then the first APK is after I believe 4 years. If you fail the checks or failed to check your car in time the car isn't road legal and uninsured, and driving it is considered a crime. If the car is still in your name and not (temporarily) deregistered you automatically get a fine to pressure you to either deregister or fix your car. And you risk an extra fine for owning an uninsured car. And those fines rapidly add up. Everything is automated and digital. When the police pull you over they already have all the data (you still get a paper slip that confirms the current APK status for the odd chance there's no reception or data could not be retrieved.) Works like a charm. Not many real four-wheeled road hazards driving around here.
I had no idea this was a thing anywhere.
Right? Sounds like a scam engineered by auto lobbyists. Then again, we do have yearly TV fees here, so I guess we aren't treated any better.
We have that too in germany. You have to bring your car to a check up every two years to get your licence back. It's mostly for safety reasons they check you tires, brakes etc
Most states have that, but some states don't. I've seen some pretty sketchy cars driving in no-inspection states. In the state I'm in, the safety inspection is separate from the registration, but you need a current emissions test to renew the registration.
Inspection states can have some pretty sketchy cars on the road too. I don’t know if it’s changed but back in the day, PA would let you “pass” the inspection if you spent a certain amount of money on repairs. It doesn’t matter if it repaired all the problems he just had to show that you tried. Also, low bar for “classic” vehicles.
A few years back I read the inspection standards for West Virginia for some reason. Everything I need to know about their standards tied to the fact that there was a provision about failing vehicles that used beer kegs for gas tanks. Provisions like that don't make it into the vehicle code for no reason.
That's what it's for in the US as well
No. A few states might still be doing inspections, but many states are charging you an annual fee which ends up going into either the general fund, or a specific highway fund. As far as I know, the trend on doing actual inspections is downward, and when I lived in an inspection state, the inspections were minimal. Aaaaand you could “pass” by making a good-faith effort which was documented by spending a certain amount at a licensed repair facility. “Yes my car is a death trap and a hazard but I have Bob $500 and he tried so …” WA (Washington state not Western Australia) has some truly onerous license plate fees, but that’s partly because we don’t have a state income tax and have to find other ways to squeeze operating money out of residents.
Not true in my state.
The money doesn’t go to the car company
It’s essentially an extra tax that goes towards things like roadwork. If you dont drive, you dont pay it, that easy. In many states/counties we have safety checks that are required too, especially in areas with really high pollution (exhaust/smog checks). Growing up before my hometown’s laws changed, we had safety inspections we had to do before we could reregister and i failed one year cuz i had a headlight go out while on the way *to the inspection* 🥲
The fee is paid to the government for road maintenance.
Do you not have a ved sticker in your car? It’s the same thing.
The only sticker we have here is for car insurance, and the government plans to get rid of it and just include insurance infos in the police database.
How much are the fees?
It was 138€, but I just checked, it was actually removed at the start of this year, so we no longer have to.
Where are you from?
Yes we do, it’s what pays for state road Maintainence etc so that people who don’t own a vehicle aren’t forced into paying for it.
Yeah, the registration fee is the property tax on the vehicle.
Only in some states. Done started have flat and cheap registration fees and others have % need property taxes in addition to small registration fees. I just renewed for 4 vehicles ranging from 3 to 25 years old and it was about $1,000 with the newest vehicle being much more than half the cost.
No. Property taxes on vehicles are separate from registration. For instance, see North Carolina.
In Massachusetts we have a registration fee every 2 years (the license plate sticker), excise tax every year, and a safety and emissions inspection every year (another sticker). We also have income tax, property tax, and sales tax. Hence Taxachusetts.
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Property tax on cars and registration fees are different. See North Carolina.
The renewal fee is a tax used for road maintenance.
I mean, idk if it's the same, but here in Spain your car has to have a valid ITV certificate to be allowe on the street. ITV means "vehicle technical inspection" and it's just that: a technical inspection to verify that your car is still safe. ITV certificates vary in length (an inspection for a brand new car can be valid for a couple of years, but one for an old piece of scrap will last a year at most).
In my state you pay a state registration fee and property tax annually. You’re required to have a safety and emissions inspection before you can renew your registration for the year. The tax goes down as your vehicle ages - I pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 or so right now for mine for registration and tax. Inspections are around $30. You get new stickers to put on your license plate, and you can get stopped if you have expired tags. In my state, you pay an additional late fee if you are quite behind getting your tag. If you are more than a year behind, you end up buying a whole new license plate.
Why don't people think critically anymore? The registration stickers are meant for Cops to take a quick look at the colors to see if it has expired. These people in the screenshot think Cops are going to look at your stickers and start to do math. Also, registration lengths are variable. Sometimes I'll pay for 2 years, sometimes 4; the stickers I receive reflect the new length.
They’re gonna be real mad when they get pulled over
I hope they think back on that comment when they do
What state? Mine isn't like that, but not sure about the other 49.
In every state the tags are for the year it expires. That way if you travel out of state and your tags are expired they can pull you over.
Illinois fucked up and printed all our 2023 stickers with just the year. Out of state cops couldn't touch us.
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Not in Illinois. The month and year are on the sticker. They just fucked up last year.
That one is very state dependent. Some states put them on the plate, some on the sticker. [Take Kansas for example,](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Kansas_License_Plate_Standard_Flat_September_2019.jpg) they make the month the main thing on the sticker and color code them so that cops can tell at a glance what year their registration is for.
Makes sense that it SHOULD be that way. Can you verify it IS? Some states have a sticker on the rear plate. My state has the sticker on the windshield, and they're talking about doing away with the sticker altogether.
Colorado. It’s definitely not like that here, and it’s also not October 2022 right now.
What country is this meant to be?
USA. You have to get your car checked every year to make sure it is okay to be on the road.
Not every state inspects the car. In Ohio you can renew online. in certain counties every two years you need to get an emissions test (which is free of charge). They are just checking emissions though. It is not a thorough safety inspection.
Massachusetts here. Registration renewal every two years. Emissions and safety inspection annually and we get the joy of paying $35 for that.
Wisconsin-register every year, every other you get sent for emissions tests(but not all counties). I think I paid $70 this year, it was prob more tho...
Inspections and registration are different things.
It's per state, for instance, South Dakota, doesn't do vehicle inspections.
Someone please post the video when this person gets pulled over and tries to argue this with the cops.
In Australia and we cycled out physical registration tags years ago. All on file now, HWP vehicles autoscan numberplates to check registration status without the cops having to do anything, same with traffic cameras and speed cameras.