Somerville Issuing Tickets Because of DMV Error

[meatballs12.livejournal.com]

A friend visited us last week and got a $50 parking ticket for not displaying updated registration stickers on his car. After waiting on hold and finally talking to a person, it turns out that the DMV was accidentally mailing registrations without including the stickers. So even though he is up to date on registration, he got the ticket because of their mistake. 

Not to worry though! He can appeal it by going to court. Good thing he doesn't have other things to do with his time.

Comments

[42itous.livejournal.com]

I, for one, wouldn't have known to look for a sticker. To be fair, I've never owned a car of my own, so that sort of thing isn't on my radar, but it's also easy for someone to forget a detail that they only have to think about once a year.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry but I fail to understand how someone can be a car-owning adult in Massachusetts and not know the basic piece of information that car registrations are supposed to come with a license plate sticker.

[42itous.livejournal.com]

Absent-mindedness? This is why I would not make a good candidate for car ownership. :)

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry but I fail to understand how someone can be a registry of motor vehicles employee in Massachusetts and not know the basic piece of information that car registrations are supposed to come with a license plate sticker.

FTFY.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Point
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Yes, it was the RMV's fault that no sticker was included.

However, it is incumbent on YOU--as in, YOU are the vehicle owner, the buck stops with YOU--to make sure that your paperwork is in order. Knowing that registrations are supposed to come with a plate sticker is basic, functional knowledge required to be an automobile-owning adult in this Commonwealth, just like knowing the fact that you need a license to operate a car, or knowing what a red sign with eight signs means. Failing to notice that the sticker was missing, and to get the situation corrected promptly, and continuing to drive around like that until the old sticker expired, is entirely on the vehicle owner.

Let me ask you this: What would be your reaction if our individual went to the RMV counter to register a new vehicle, they gave him a registration card but no license plates, and he was pulled over for driving around without plates? "Everyone knows cars are supposed to have license plates," right? Sticker: Same concept.

[pierceheart.livejournal.com]

Cool graphics, bro!

But let me ask - seeing as how you admit the registry screwed up:
What's the recourse for the owner operator, who is out $50, potentially?
As soon as the error on the registry's part is determined, quit driving AND quit parking the car on public ways?

Because getting a new decal (which the registry failed to provide) isn't instantaneous.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Presumably the owner/operator renewed the registration some time before it expired. Even if the new registration was received without a sticker, the car would still have a facially-valid sticker for some time, which should serve to deter parking tickets of the nature described.

For example, if your current registration expires at the end of October 2012, and you renew it now, you'll get a renewal that expires in October 2014. If the renewal registration arrives in the mail without the sticker, you still have a sticker on your plate that's facially valid through the end of October 2012, so your parked car won't accrue a ticket just sitting there.

There *are* a couple of ugly corner cases that can happen as a result, for which I'd have sympathy.

Let's say the owner got the renewal in on time, but received the renewal with the missing sticker in the last couple of days of the month, too late to reasonably get to an RMV office in person to do anything about it. He then had the misfortune to get a parking ticket for an apparent expired registration in the first few days of the following month. E.g. registration expires Sept. 30th, sticker-less renewal was received Sept. 28th, and the ticket was received on Oct. 2nd. The meter maid is within the law but is a complete jerk for writing a ticket like that. Especially since if you renew online, the printed-out transaction receipt serves as proof-of-registration, so the car *could* be legal.

Or you're driving the car around with your renewed registration but the next-most-current sticker. You get pulled over, and the cop doesn't buy your story of "The renewal arrived in the mail two days ago. The Registry screwed up and didn't send me a sticker with it," and tickets you for not displaying the *most recent sticker* despite having a valid registration. In that case, yeah, that sucks, and the driver is the hapless victim of both an RMV clerical error and a real jerk of a cop. (This is the kind of encounter with law enforcement I'd expect to happen in my hometown in New Jersey, FWIW--which is how and why I learned to be so picky about having MV paperwork in order. The cops in my hometown would probably impound the vehicle, too, while you got the matter sorted out with the NJ DMV, and make you walk home. :-/ )

However, there's no indication that either of those is what happened here. What we have, absent any other explanation, is that two errors were committed: first, the RMV's clerical error in not sending out a sticker with the registration, and second, the vehicle owner's failure to recognize the mistake and get it corrected in a timely manner.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

There are plenty of places where you have N days to get plates (Georgia comes to mind, since that's where I moved here from), and where plates can be mailed to you. If I registered my car and didn't get plates, I would think nothing of it until a week or two later.

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

Every two years.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

Thank you for extinguishing my panic :)