This got me years ago in CA. I got cited for not stopping properly at a stop sign. I hoped to contest it, but the court date on the ticket didn’t make sense. Went to the courthouse and they had no record of the citation. It may have been before all the paperwork was filed so I can’t remember if I checked back a few weeks later. Fast forward probably a year or two and I get a letter saying my license had been suspended weeks ago for not showing up to court and claiming they sent multiple notices–they hadn’t. In the interim I had renewed my license without issue but I had tossed my copy of the ticket. The copy I later got from the courthouse showed the officer crossed out the original court date and wrote in another after he gave me my copy.
When I did go to court my understanding is that the judge saw what happened and cleared things up and directed me to the DMV to restore my license. I think I just paid the fine for the stop sign because I was more concerned with restoring my license. The DMV wanted me to pay something like $50. “But it was never supposed to be suspended in the first place. Why do I need to pay $50?” “That’s not what this says. Your options are to pay $50 now and get your license restored today or go back to the court, talk to them, and wait a few weeks without a license.” I then spent the next few years paying inflated insurance rates. It rolled off my record before I could figure out how to prove it wasn’t valid.
At the time I was single, had an ok job, and could spare the time and money. Even though I was angry at what happened I can’t imagine going through the same process with more on my plate and fewer resources. I can also easily see how things could have spiraled.
My job at the time would pay for a bus pass and I sometimes had car issues. The bus route thankfully didn’t require changing buses, but took an hour. It was a 10-15 minute drive. By the time I left work the bus only came every hour so missing it sucked.
Thing is, ‘the line in the sand’ is always ‘being moved’ if one happens to be Black in this country; no matter how much we may conform, cooperate, or ‘abide,’ it’s never enough.
I drove a car with no glovebox for many years. I kept all the paperwork in the trunk. It was a car prone to being pulled over because, well… let’s just say it was fast and exotic looking. A real fuzz magnet. Every time, I’d have to explain that the papers are in the trunk and I’ll need to get out and go open the trunk to get them. They always begrudgingly let me do it, but I am white, which I’m sure helped. There really was nowhere else in that race-car-with-plates to put a piece of paper though.
In California, there’s at least one other reason this is necessary. HOV lane stickers have an associated piece of paper that proves you paid for the stickers that are on the car. It’s like a supplemental registration. They can’t attach that info to the plates because the plates stay with the car, as do the stickers. So if you buy a car with HOV stickers on it, you have to then go and pay to use them, basically. The stickers need to exist to prove at a glance that you’re allowed to be in the HOV lane, but then if you get pulled over, they also need a way to verify that the stickers are paid for in good standing, and you didn’t just buy them on eBay or they were on the car when you got it.
One note of significance to US readers - the UK plates stay with the vehicle forever. They don’t change of the car is sold or transferred or moved to a different location (within UK).
Perhaps not.
When I was a kid, I was pulled over and my friend and I got the paper work out of the glove box. When the cop approached he had his gun drawn and wanted to know what we’d been doing and later explained that he was worried we may have been getting a weapon out.
I’ve subsequently learned that when you are pulled over you are to remain in your seat looking forward with your hands on the steering wheel and not move until ordered so by the officer.
We are all criminals in the eyes of the police.
Fwiw, the couple of times I have been stopped they only asked for my license. I assume asking for all three is just a way to hassle people of color and generate probable cause. By law you are still supposed to carry them so if the cops ask and you don’t have it they can escalate.
I’d guess they can’t necessarily access out of state records automatically so if your vehicle has out of state plates then I’d guess they will ask to see them more often.
The police know the MOT, registered keeper and address and tax status of a car, as well as any notice of former possible illegal activity (reported stolen, involved in an incident etc.) through ANPR.
They do not know the insurance status until they stop and identify the driver (they could tell if the registered keeper is insured but they would still need to be satisfied that the driver is the registered keeper). If the driver is not the registered keeper they can do a search to discover if the driver is insured to drive that car (but they still have to be satisfied of the identity of the driver). Without photo ID they can still be satisfied (credit/debit cards etc) but the level of satisfaction goes down by skin hue and mood of the copper (as well as the attitude of the driver and passengers). Not having, or claiming not to have, any ID is legal – but it can turn into a pile of poo quite quickly.
Pretty sure that’s not true. Two counterexamples. If you buy a custom plate, PEN15, say, that’s yours to stick on whatever car you like. And, should you see a registration you want, KN08HED, perhaps, you can buy that from the owner without buying the car. Am I mistaken?
