I seen it quite a bit when we lived in Jacksonville and now I'm seeing it here in northern Colorado...……. late Registration Tags. People get a Registration Notice in the mail, for those already registered before, but I think many folks simply ignore the Notice or misplace it. A maintenance man, that use to work for the apartment complex we lived in, had tags that were three years old w/a Ohio license plate. I seen other vehicles there that had tags that were six months or more old. Now I'm seeing the same thing here! I do know that registering a vehicle, especially a new/newer one, in a new state is expensive, but still. We re-register our vehicle in Florida before we left, so we wouldn't have a problem (pulled over) driving here. After we got here, we registered the vehicle with Colorado within two weeks and got new plates. Actually, the Law states that we had 90 days to do that, but we wanted to get the Florida plate off and Colorado on. Registration fee for our vehicle was under $100, because it's a 2005 with 164K miles on it. We were shocked that the cost was so low. I do know that, for those that have more than one new/newer vehicle, the cost of re-registration can be very expensive, let alone the cost of registering more than one vehicle in a new state.
Another thing that gets wife and I, is when we see a rear license plate with multiple registration tags on it. I thought everyone knew that new tags are suppose to go over the old ones, but beside or below. If there are multiple tags on one spot (stacked up), the multiple ones come off and the new one replaces them that were taken off. Actually, yesterday, I seen a vehicle with the rear plate on the front of the vehicle and the front plate on the rear. IOW, the registration tags were on the front and not on the back. The person will definitely be "lite up" by an officer for that.
New York tags are the same front and back. No stickers at all on them. The registration is a windshield sticker that is renewed and replaced every two years. People can,t play the NY police you would be nailed d first time on the road if you tried
In Texas, the police are quite vigilant in looking for things like expired registration or inspection tags. They can spot an expired sticker while meeting a car at 70 miles an hour. In Maine, while policies will differ between one police department and another, most do not seem to look for such things on cars that are in traffic, these citations will be added to whatever other tickets a driver will get when pulled over for something else, and expired registrations often lead to suspended driver's licenses, which lead, in turn, to very expensive insurance policies. I know that from experience. Another thing, in Maine, is that if someone delays registering their vehicle; when they do register it, the registration date begins when the old one expired, rather than on the date of registration, so there are no savings involved in getting away with it for months. Suppose that my registration expired in October of 2019. If I waited until September of 2020 to finally renew my registration, I would be paying the full price for a registration that would expire the following month. Of course, if the car isn't in running condition for an extended period of time, there is a form that I can file to take it off the roll, but then I'd better not be found driving it.
@Peter Renfro Here in Arizona, things are easy: no front plates. Unless you secure vanity plates, then you get both. Optional if you place a front vanity. Quite a number of states now have only one plate. Weirdest in our experience was Missouri. Front and rear required, except light trucks over 1/2 ton, they get ONLY a FRONT plate! Make any sense? Cops ought to be pulling trucks over left and right for no plate! Didn't seem to happen. While moving to Indiana from Colorado in 1978, I was driving my little Ford Fiesta with an expired rear tag, over which I had pasted a most-realistic-looking fake tag. I had long since disconnected the speedometer/odometer cable to keep from accruing high miles reading, an Indiana cop ahead of me was driving at about what I guessed was 50, limit was 55, so I very gradually passed him. He pulled me over. He said he was going 55, how could I be foolish enough to pass him? I explained I was moving to Indiana, and the speedo had quit working a few days back, thought he was going 50. He bought it, fake tag & all, let me go, admonished I better get the speedo fixed soon! Frank
@Ken Anderson Akin to these registration tales: My nephew driving, his wife passenger, coming out to visit us in AZ from KS, was stopped in the west corner of Texas by a lady cop who had passed him from the OPPOSITE direction, pulled a "U", came after him, pulled him over. He asked why, was not speeding; she said she saw neither had on the belts while passing them from the opposite way! Hard to believe, the belts were not on, each citation cost $105! Frank
Vehicle registration in Alabama is a police officer’s nightmare. It is a normal day to be out driving somewhere and see a few cars with no tag at all or a sheet of paper in the rear window with “tag applied for” scribbled upon it. There is a thirty day or so grace period for those who have just bought a new or used car to get it registered. With the exception of the possibility that a car missing the tag has been seen by the same officer over a period of a couple months or it has been pulled over for another offense, there’s no way for an officer to tell whether the car has been recently bought or not. And, as a side bar, we were in Yvonne’s daughter’s truck the other day and got pulled over for an expired registration. The officer checked and we were up to date but the sticker had been removed from the tag. What’s funny about it is that I’m sure that whilst we were pulled over, at least one or two cars made it down the road in that cop’s patrolling area with no tags at all.....and it’s legal. Kinda. Sorta. Stupid.
Don't know about now, but when I lived in So. California, people had a real problem of other people stealing their Year tag on their vehicle license plate. I found out that it was a felony to do that. I remember when I was looking for a truck to buy. I had a car at the time. I read an ad in local newspaper about a truck for sale at a price I really liked. Went over to look at it. While looking at it, with the owner with me, I noticed the color of the year tag didn't match the color of month tag. Come to find out, the truck that was for sale couldn't pass Smog Inspection, so the owner took the Year tag off of another vehicle of his, that had passed Smog, and put it on the truck he was trying to sell. He had told the DMV that someone had stolen the tag he took off and needed it replaced. When I told him "you do know that's illegal to do, right?", he said "so, you either want to buy this truck or not?" I said "no thanks" and left.
In Florida, we only had one license plate, in the back. Here in Colorado, there is two, back and front. Another thing I found funny, and also is illegal...…..having an old, no longer registered, license plate on the front of a vehicle. I knew this young lady that worked in the office at our old apt. complex in Florida, that put her sisters old, no longer registered, license plate from California, on the front of her vehicle. I also noticed another lady, from our old apt complex in Florida, had her old, no longer registered, Oregon license plate on the front of her vehicle. When I told her that wasn't legal, she said "oh well", with a smile. She also said "I just happen to still love Oregon".
In El Paso, at least when I traveled there for Sears, my co-worker, who lived there, told me of the vehicles registered in El Paso, every fourth one stood the chance of being stolen within a year! A massive smuggling of vehicles went on, carrying them into Mexico where they were sold illegally. Texas, too, had great problems with year stickers being stolen. Look for one on a Texas plate; it ain't there! They affix them to the inside of the windshield. Frank
I think this thread addresses the root of the problem. Every state has different tag standards and laws. I'm surprised they aren't uniformed by now.
This last Friday, we stopped at McDonalds. As we walked into the restaurant, I noticed the tags on the vehicle sitting next to us...…...left tag said 4 and right tag said 19. That's April of 2019 and we are now almost in the middle of December 2019! When we walked back to our vehicle, I told the lady (30'ish) sitting in the drivers seat, smoking a cigarette with the window down, about her tags and she simple said "I know". What I think possibly happened is that her vehicle wouldn't pass the emissions test and the State wouldn't give her a waiver to not have it done. So, she keeps on driving it. Not nearly the police presents here as was where we use to live. The population here just doesn't call for it. The Department here is much smaller than there.
My only complaint is that they are too expensive here. Mine was $238 for a 2012 Chevy Cruze .....mine expire in June of each year.
Well, it can really cost when registering a vehicle, especially a new/newer vehicle, in a new state. Fortunately, our 2005 Dodge Durango, with 160,000 miles on it, cost us less than $100 to register here in Colorado. Our registration tags were going to expire before we left for Colorado, so we re-registered (new tags) before leaving. We didn't want to get pulled over for expired tags on our way to Colorado. What I was truly worried about is the emissions test that is required here before registration can be done. Since Florida doesn't require an emissions test, it had been over 12 years since our last test in Colorado. No problem, the Durango fully passed.