So apparently I’ve been wandering around in a fog and didn’t notice my vehicle reg expired in May. Well, fuck. I got pulled over by a very nice officer who cited me for it, and also gave me a citation for expired proof of insurance. I have current insurance, I just didn’t get a chance to print my new card yet. I was told that as long as I show the judge updated proof of insurance, there’s no fine for that one.
Per the officer, the fine for the reg could be as low as $75 (not sure how high it could go). I have no arrests and no criminal record. I do have one old speeding ticket that’s fallen off by now, and a seatbelt ticket a couple months back which I promptly paid (and the officer then failed to notice my reg was expired, I guess he didn’t run my plate).
Obviously this is my own fault. I move a lot, I didn’t notify the state when I changed addresses, and I’m not the best about setting up USPS forwarding, so I didn’t get the mail about my registration back when it would have helped me remember to re-register. I just spaced it.
What do I say when I go to court? What should I expect? How do I stop myself from crying or freaking out? I’ve never had to go to court before. And if I get pulled over in the meantime (I do plan to get my registration taken care of in the next couple days), do I just show them the ticket and say it’s being taken care of? I got to keep my license, that’s good at least.
I had a similar problem earlier this year and took care of it without having to go to court. This is in California. I received the court notice and bail information in the mail a few weeks after I was pulled over for expired reg (total procrastination on my part). I renewed my reg online, and when I got the new card and tags, I went to the DMV for an inspection. Ten minutes later, with the examiner signing the back of the ticket, I drove off, went to the post office, and dropped the signed ticket, the bail notice, and a check for the $75 in a priority mail envelop and sent it to the address on the bail notice. Fairly painless.
This sounds like this just happened, is that right? If so, you might have a number of months to straighten it out (if you are in a jurisdiction that handles things like California), and your choices will be more clear once you get the official notice in the mail.
Oh sorry I forgot to mention that, this is Illinois. Both ticket checkboxes say I “have to appear.” 4 months is pretty far out of date, so I understand that.
I don’t think I can renew online. I’m not sure. I believe I need new physical plates this year because last year, I got a sticker.
And yeah I just got pulled over today on the way to work. I’m supposed to get an official notice in the mail within 17 days.
(sorry, just missed the edit window. doh)
Huh - that’s annoying. I guess they want you to appear and prove you’ve got the stuff taken care of.
Obviously, get the registration taken care of ASAP. Then once the ticket has hit the system, it couldn’t hurt to contact the court and ask if you can plead guilty and pay the fine etc., without having to physically appear.
If they stand fast - oh well. I’d bet it would be taken care of by someone clerical “got the paperwork? show me. OK, fine for that is… got a check? 'bye”. it’d be annoying if you had to wait around for hours :(.
To help in the future - and I should take my own advice, as I’ve gotten pulled over for expired stuff like that: set up a Google calendar entry or something like that, and set it to email you every day when you’re getting close to the date.
hehe, thanks for the advice! I’m actually living in Woodridge now, and was driving in Woodridge at the time. The ticket says DuPage county. From just a quick googling, Skokie appears to be in Cook county, yes?
I live in Georgia, but here’s my advice for what it’s worth.
It’s not necessary to cry or freak out. They won’t be mad at you, and you won’t have to explain why you were delinquent or apologize or anything.
My husband went through a crazy period a few years ago where he got like 10 tickets over a few months’ time, mostly for speeding but he also got two for not changing his license and registration over when he moved from TN to GA (actually more than a year later!) It’s less hassle to just pay the fine online and be done with it, but if you have to go to court, they will probably herd you into a room to talk to the solicitor in turns. He will often cut through the bullshit and negotiate a cheaper fine in exchange for not taking up the court’s time. Win/win!
I am in Cook County and had almost the identical thing happen to me (moved from another state, tags expired, no proof of insurance but covered).
When I went to court, when my name was called I walked up and the judge asked some very matter-of-fact questions. I showed proof of insurance and also proof that I’d since gotten my registration in order. I think I had to pay a $75 fine for the expired plates and that was it. It was over before I knew it.
Not in IL, cashew. Plate reg timing depends on when you reg’d the vehicle in the first place.
Thank you so much for sharing, this makes me feel better. I was worried that I’d have to explain how it happened, that I’m repentant, and it will never happen again. I’ve watched too much Judge Judy in my lifetime, apparently. I can be matter-of-fact about it as long as I don’t have to explain myself. Incidentally, for the proof you provided, did you just bring the DMV paperwork with you?
I would MUCH rather pay a fine online and be done with it, because scheduling time off work ad-hoc is practically impossible for me this time of year. But that does not appear to be an option (although I haven’t received any official documents in the mail yet, so who knows what those might say). It sounds to me like I have to show up to prove that I have updated my registration and printed out my proof of insurance.
At least the cop was nice about it. I was on my way to work, he didn’t demand I get the car off the road or judge me or anything… mostly I’m embarrassed that I’ve been driving around all this time without valid plates!! Just Saturday I spent 8 hours on the road and didn’t get caught. Sheesh, I’m a retard.:smack:
No advice, just wanted to relate a similar story. I got pulled over one night with tags that had expired eight months previously! I had no excuse, just plain forgot that it needed to be done. The cop really scared me at first, started asking me if there was anyone I could call to come pick me up. Fortunately, my husband was on a business trip, and I didn’t get a chance to mention my sister, parents, or in-laws who all could have given me a ride, because the officer suddenly noticed that I was pregnant. And then he saw my two year-old sleeping in her carseat in the back. At that point he informed me that a law had recently been passed that made any tags over six months past due meant an automatic tow, but considering my situation, he’d let me off with a warning this one time. I about cried I was so grateful. Had to pay a buttload of late fees, but that was so much better than having to pay to get the car out of the impound lot, not to mention the humiliation of calling someone to come get me in the middle of the night because I hadn’t managed to pay the car registration. (middle of the night because dear daughter would NOT sleep, so I had resorted to driving her around in the wee hours.)
As an amusing aside, did I mention that my husband’s business trip had taken him to Vegas, where he met up with a bunch of his old buddies from Florida? Now, they say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but when your wife checks the bank balance the next morning (to see if we could cover the huge late fees I had racked up), and sees that several hundred dollars have been taken out of the account the previous night, in a series of late night calls to the casino ATM and bar, it doesn’t take a genius.
Remember that episode of Friends when Monica opened all the wedding presents without Chandler, and Chandler lost the wedding cameras, and they decided to call it even? It was like that.
“You got drunk and spent HOW much of our money on craps!?”
“Well *you *didn’t notice your tags had been expired for eight months, almost got our car towed, and cost us hundreds of dollars in penalties!”
Plates aren’t renewed at any specific interval. I haven’t gotten new ones in probably 5+ years. The current ones have several layers of registration renewal stickers on them.
Well in Indiana (where I lived most of my life) they would issue new plates every 4 years, to update the artwork or something. For some reason I was thinking Illinois did every two. I don’t know.
You don’t have to replace your plates. They haven’t replaced plates anytime this century. I recall having to replace plates once in the 1990s. You just do your best to scrape off the old sticker (I use a screwdriver, then some powder cleanser and paper towels) and paste your new sticker right on top (make sure the surface is thoroughly dry). A lot of people don’t even bother trying to scrape off the old sticker, but if you do that you’ll never get the old layer off – the glue seems to get more permanent as it ages.
If you still have the renewal card they sent you, you can renew online (but you’ll pay an extra fee for using a credit card). You need the PIN from the renewal form. If not, you’ll need to go to a Secretary of State’s office (we don’t call it the “DMV” in Illinois). The nearest one seems to be in Naperville, but you can check here. Bring your old registration card in with you, it will speed things up a bit.
You can also renew at a Currency Exchange (for you out-of-towners, that’s what we call check cashing stores, you can’t actually exchange any currency at a Currency Exchange), although I’m not sure if you can do it without a renewal form. (Maybe you can.) There will be a fee, but you will get your sticker right on the spot and not have to worry about driving around with an expired plate.
It used to be that judges would just dismiss the case if you showed up with proof that you renewed. A lot of judges considered making you take a day off of work to be punishment enough. But I don’t think that’s very common any more. In fact, back in the days when parking tickets were handled in court, there was one judge who would ask everybody in the room who had a job to raise their hands and he would just give the group a little lecture and dismiss their tickets.
That’s what happened to me last year (Cook County). When told to, I gave the bailiff the proof that I was insured on the day I was pulled over, the bailiff handed it to the judge, and the citation for that was dismissed.
My wife bounced the check for the license tabs. I got pulled over and berated by a cop for having illegal plates. I did not know what the hell he was talking about. I was arrested, car impounded. My wife quickly paid the tabs with cash. When i went to court the judge said since I had taken care of it , the fine was 75 bucks. Then they told me I had to talk to someone else. i was given 40 hours of community service. I had to paint school bleachers and pick up papers on the street for 5 ,eight hour days. I also had to pay for that privilege .Livonia ,Michigan sucks.
Update time. My court date is this Friday, October 7th–2 days from now. I got assigned to the Downers Grove Field Court, on Saratoga Avenue. Fortunately, I got an 8:30am time slot. Since that’s one of the earliest possible slots (if not the earliest, I dunno how early court opens), and since I don’t start work until 11:30am, I really lucked out. I can’t see the thing taking more than an hour, tops.
Coincidentally, my 6-month auto policy *just *renewed on today’s date (October 5), so I’m taking proof of insurance that covers both the period when I got pulled over, and the current period. Hopefully that doesn’t make me look shady! The car has been continuously insured ever since I bought it 2.5 years ago.
I hope this whole thing goes quickly and painlessly. And I hope parking is easy to figure out, and there’s somebody to tell me which courtroom to go to, or something. My mailed notice doesn’t have a room number listed on it (just a case# and a ticket#), so I don’t know where to go. I’m scared! Wish me luck… I’ll post back afterward about what happened, in case anybody is curious.
You’ll be OK, expired plates really isn’t a big deal and as long as you have all the paperwork in hand the worst you can expect is a fine/court costs.
Last time I was in court was about four years ago when I took someone to small claims court (and won.) Dockets were posted in the lobby, with lists of cases by name and which courtroom to go to. There will be guards/bailiffs or other nervous people milling around who can direct you. Might take more than an hour though; 8:30 is just when the judge shows up. Dress reasonably nicely and don’t chew gum in court.
They won’t be mad at you, and you won’t have to explain why you were delinquent or apologize or anything.
milling around who can direct you. Might take more than an hour though; 8:30 is just when the judge shows up. Dress reasonably nicely and don’t chew gum in court.