I know its normal to get asked for license, registration, and proof of insurance. But why ask for the registration? When I register every year, the county sends me a sticker with the plate number and expiration date to stick on the lic plate. The cops van see the plate and date right? Plus I’m sure they run the plate when they pull you over anyway. Seems to me they already know the registration status.
So why do they still ask for the registration paper?
US issue
This has all been computerized since the late 80s. They know if the car has a valid registration before they get out of the car, either by calling in your plates or by typing it into a terminal in the car. But since you are required to carry the registration in the car, not having it is something they can cite you for and make a few more bucks off of you.
The police are prosecution. They claim they don’t have quotas, but with any job, there are unsaid quotas.
I worked in IT help desk, and I was told our department wasn’t opening and closing enough tickets to justify our department’s existence. So I changed the sensitivity of our network monitoring system for our SDWAN and wrote a script that would automatically create a ticket and close it pretty much if a single packet was lost. I was hailed a hero as the bean counter CTO wasn’t going to review the actual tickets, but he got the metrics he needed for the meeting.
This kept a team of 14 quality support technicians employed. This stupid trick I rolled out over a weekend kept families fed for a good five years, delaying the inevitable layoff.
And we all found better jobs and left at our own pace.
But I digress, it isn’t like the police work on commission (eh… well drugs disappear… and bribery and extortion exist…) but if you aren’t writing tickets, then the prosecutor is going to bitch because they aren’t handling enough tickets to justify the department of prosecution.
So cops will look for any packet loss. Registration is said lost packet. The same for insurance, any discrepancy in your license, and if your license plate isn’t perfectly mounted on your vehicle. Just fucking anything.
You have insurance but don’t have the latest card on you? They will write a ticket. You take the insurance card to the county clerk and they throw the ticket out and cancel the court date. Makes no difference to the cop, as it boosted his KPI.
“Yay, I am halping! Pay me!” Oh, how the bureaus will burrow.
I don’t get pulled over often but I haven’t Ben asked for registration in a long time. They do ask for license and insurance though.
This is the correct answer. Last time I was pulled over the officer only asked for my license, actually.
“May I see your license, please?”
“Yes sir.”
“Thanks. Are you aware that your passenger brake light is out?”
“No sir.”
“Get that fixed as soon as you can. Here’s your license. Drive safe.”
In fairness, I’m a middle aged white man, so I’m aware that I run basically every police interaction in easy mode.
They like to have a reason to make you open your glovebox so that they can see inside and maybe catch you with a joint or some loose pills
Because how do they know you didn’t just steal a sticker? Those stickers don’t have anything on them to prove you actually registered the vehicle. Just a color and a date period.
cause you are usually told to score the sticker with a sharp knife so if anyone tries to rob it it tears to pieces.
The stickers in Florida have the tag number on the sticker. Very obvious if its on the wrong tag.
Because when they pull you over and sit in their car for a minute before getting out, they are calling in your license plate number and make/model/color of the car. The dispatcher types it into their system and radios back to the officer with the owners name, address, whether the registration is valid, and whether the owner has any warrants out for them. They will automatically have all the information about the registration before they even get out of their car.
This is based on my personal experience as a campus police dispatcher in college more than 40 years ago. I’m sure by now, they have data terminals in the car they can type it in and look it up themselves.
They do have terminals, called MDT’s (mobile data terminals). If the permissions are set for it in CAD, they can look things up. Your comment made me realize I do still hear them call for the info over the radio occasionally, though.
Why even bother with the sticker then lol
These were phased out in Australia like 20.years ago.
I’m not sure it’s possible to convey how absolutely deadlocked any legal changes have become in the US. Jon Stewart fought for years to get September 11th first-responders the healthcare they were promised, it was a single page of extremely popular bi-partisan legislation.
The system is as it is because that’s the way it was in the 90s or so, and since there’s no pressing need and no one has a reason to fight for years to change this particular aspect it will continue this way. Possibly for the next millennia or so.
More than that, it’s different in every state. iirc some states have stopped sending paper registrations entirely, while others practically still require women to have a note from their fathers. Somehow those fifty different systems have to talk to one another, too.
So not only do they have to get the House and the Senate to agree on something, and get the President to not veto it, they also have to get every single state to actually prioritize and fund the change across each jurisdiction (and there are a total of 3,244 counties in the US, so that’s another layer of complication).
It’s like turning the Titanic, but the Titanic is towing 50 boats behind it, each of which are towing dozens to hundreds of boats behind them. And the captain of the Titanic is senile, and half of the tiny boats in the back are actively sinking, and the iceberg is currently cutting into the hull, and…
And there was a recent supreme court decision that basically neutered federal agencies like the EPA, so things will probably be even more tied to congressional slowness.
It’s not to check if it’s registered. It’s to check if it’s registered to YOU. Does the name/signature on your license match the name/signature on the registration? If not, you’ll need to explain why you’re in possession of the car.
Absolutely right. No love from the peanut gallery, though…
Wat? That makes no sense?
“This car is registered to someone else.”
“Yes, I’m borrowing it”
“…”
“You must be a criminal?”
But that’s exactly how cops act?
Like in this situation this cop can now say “your story makes no sense”
And then proceed to escalate if they feel like it.
Literally had this experience with a cop when I bought a car that day and drove it with my old plates on it (not an uncommon thing to not use the temp tags). Got pulled over while stopped at a train track because the cop ran my plates and was upset that the vehicle models didn’t match the registration. Threatened to impound my vehicle and everything.
I got mad at the cop and straight up said “alright well my story does make sense, so I’m gonna tell you it again and you’re going to give me a ticket so I can leave” and then he got all pissy, wrote me a ticket and then I left. He pulled me over again about 2 minutes later because he forgot to give me my license back.
For clarification, I’m a white guy and at the time I was an active member of the military (which was noted on my license). All, I’m saying is police officers are power tripping fuckwads more often than not.
Fair enough… you guys have a pretty severe cop problem :/
This is why if you’re lending your car it’s a good idea to give them a signed note. Especially if they’re going out of your state/ province/whatever. It might not help much, but typically car thieves don’t have one.
“I’m going to head over to the store”
“One sec, let me just write you a note saying that I allowed you to borrow my car”
An interaction dreamed up by the utterly deranged.
Just to be clear, I’m not criticising your explanation here. I just think it’s kind of absurd how US cops seem to act. Just the idea that you could be suspected of stealing a car if you don’t own the car you’re driving just seems crazy to me.
The store is in another state? If you trust them enough to lend them your car frequently the note can sit in the glove box.
(Asking cold-weather people: does anyone keep any gloves in there?)
I don’t see how: you’d get all your paperwork wet.
Gloves are in jacket pockets. If I did leave any in the car, it would be in the door pocket, or left on the back seat to dry
But most of us have heat in our cars
I’m not very familiar with the US, but I’ve driven borrowed cars through several countries over here in Europe without any other documentation that “Trust me bro, I’m borrowing this car” on plenty of occasions. In that regard it seems pretty strange that you would need more documentation to bring a car across state lines in the US.
Also, it’s pretty common here in Europe for people living near the border to shop on the other side (groceries or whatever). I can’t imagine it’s any less common in the US for people to have nearby shops in the next state.
I’m not saying it’s legally necessary. It’s not. But cops tend to assume everyone is committing crimes, not just borrowing from a friend. And registration and driver’s license are issued by each state, not nationally, so the database might not be as easily accessed by cops in a different state. So it would just be a thing you’d do to help your friend stay out of extra trouble if they get caught speeding or something.
I get it, I’m not saying this is something everyone does or should be doing, I think it’s just one of many things that underscores how messed up US cops are.
Do the cops not have access to the registration records on a digital system?
Just another thing they can use to fuck with you and maybe get to write you a ticket for.
Or, if you’re black, they then have an excuse to shoot you as you reach for it. “Looked like he was reaching for a weapon. I feared for my life!”
In my country, we get asked to blow into the breathalyzer. That’s the only thing they haven’t figured out how to make digital.
It’s an analog breathalyzer?
They mean digital, as in using digits, as in fingers and toes. They’re talking about sticking fingers in your butt.
You can feel the alcohol then?
Let me smell your breath. … yeah you’ve been drinking
I prefer to think there’s a comically big lever with a little hand on it and the 4 smilies for “how satisfied are you with the cleanliness of this restroom” it can point to while you’re blowing.
It certainly does not look cloud-connected, AI-enabled, or requiring a subscription…
Well that’s good. Im sure it is digital in the same way as a calculator or a clock, but analog in the pure sense is a funny idea.
In California, proof of payment for a vehicle registration renewal is allowed as proof of registration, specifically to cover the period after the payment is sent but before the DMV has issued the registration and corresponding sticker. So even if the DMV hasn’t received the payment in the mail, if a motorist can show some sort of proof (eg a bill pay transaction on their phone), that is acceptable.
Also, the DMV here will issue one-day registrations, in order to allow a vehicle to be driven from one storage location to another. If a motorist has a proper one-day registration, that won’t necessarily show up on the police computer, but is nevertheless legit.
Both of those cases would only apply if the cop’s computer shows the vehicle as unregistered, hence why the cop would ask in those cases. It doesn’t explain why they ask for it every time, even when the vehicle is registered normally.
It’s also a chance for cops to look in the glove box, where most people keep their registration. Or to smoke out people who stole a car and thus don’t know precisely where the registration is.
But those are ancillary reasons for cops asking about registration. I figured OP only wanted the bona fide, entirely-defensible reasons.
Fun fact: this never happens on a bicycle
Hmmm. That’s an excellent idea.
Yes it does lol, read through random court records sometimes when you’re bored, you’ll be shocked what you find.
Pulling people over for traffic violations is largely a money making scheme. Why remove the law from the books when computers are widely available when you can still add a fine for people who either don’t have theirs or have an old one?
I wonder how much of the shitty societal problems are just rich people passing fear and purity to try to avoid paying taxes
Most I imagine.
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We get asked for license and insurance, no registration.
Stickers can be forged. Checking your papers against a database is a lot more certain. The sticker is just there (or out of date) to justify pulling you over.
And it’s common for vehicle thieves to swap plates on vehicles that they steal. They may want to check to match the registration and the plate.
Nah. The plate either matches the vehicle or it doesn’t. Sure, you can steal one from a very similar car, but then that tag is in the db for being stolen. Not having that piece of paper is one more angle for getting probable cause to fuck with you, and deliver a ticket.
but then that tag is in the db for being stolen.
Not if you put the plates from the stolen car onto that car and that car’s owner doesn’t notice…
Most plates that are stolen are used right away, before they’re even called in.
Some cases they don’t need your license either, they can see an image of your license by entering your name and birthdate into their cars computer.
Right. I would think all this was readily available from a police DB
Jurisdiction protocol?
In my state I’ve been asked for “registration” most of the times I have been pulled over but they have always meant my insurance verification. They have been able to pull up your plate registration in real time since the 80s at least and now it comes up automatically as they drive around because they have ALPRs on their dash.
In my state they can pull up your insurance too, they just don’t.
