Expired vehicle tags in California

[gatorslap]

I have long been under the impression that in California, when your registration expires, you have an additional month before they will ticket you. I thought this was “common knowledge” and has been the law for a long time.

However, I have a parking ticket dated 10-29 and my car’s registration is September. Shouldn’t I have until November 1st?

Googling the relevant portion of the California vehicle code gives me this:

4000… (a) (1) ( ) A person shall not drive, move, or leave standing upon a highway, or in an offstreet public parking facility, any motor vehicle, trailer, semitrailer, pole or pipe dolly, or logging dolly, unless it is registered and the appropriate fees have been paid under this code or registered under the permanent trailer identification program, except that an off-highway motor vehicle which displays an identification plate or device issued by the department pursuant to Section 38010 may be driven, moved, or left standing in an offstreet public parking facility without being registered or paying registration fees.

(2) For purposes of this subdivision, “offstreet public parking facility” means either of the following:

(A) Any publicly owned parking facility.

(B) Any privately owned parking facility for which no fee for the privilege to park is charged and which is held open for the common public use of retail customers.

(3) This subdivision does not apply to any motor vehicle stored in a privately owned offstreet parking facility by, or with the express permission of, the owner of the privately owned offstreet parking facility.

(4) Beginning July 1, 2011, the enforcement of paragraph (1) shall commence on the first day of the second month following the month of expiration of the vehicle’s registration. This paragraph shall become inoperative on January 1, 2012.

What the hell does that last part mean? My long-held understanding of the law was correct only for six months last year?

[Duckster]

WAG - The grace period expired back in January. You were ticketed because you did not renew the registration before expiration.

[Really_Not_All_That_Bright]

That’s what it says: the grace period was repealed.

The legislature temporarily instituted a 30-day grace period under CVC §4000(a)(4) because the DMV was having trouble mailing out 60-day expiration notices.

[Omar_Little]

@gatorslap

What the hell does that last part mean?

You owe a fine.

[DrDeth]

Yep, you owe the fine. Yep, whoever gave you that ticket was being a bit of a dick.

[MonkeyMensch]

On the other hand you’ve saved me a fine since I forgot to renew and I’m an October vehicle. Many thanks.

[Senegoid]

There’s a separate but related issue.

The notice that comes with the registration renewal notice states (and has always stated for as long as I can remember) that, once you send in your renewal form and money that you may drive your vehicle on the roads, even though you haven’t actually received your new license plate tag yet. (I forget whether it specifies any one-month time limit on that.)

Thus, you can drive with an expired tag (for one extra month?) providing that you’ve sent in your renewal.

This seems to imply one of two possbilities:
(a) Cops will not try to enforce tags that are expired within one month of their expiration, or
(b) When cop sees a recently-expired tag, he can phone home to ask if the registration has been renewed.

I think if the OP has actually not sent in his renewal papers on time, he loses his case. But if he did send in his papers on time, and the DMV has processed that (as evidenced, perhaps, by the day the check cleared with OP’s bank) then the OP wins his case. But that’s the case where the cop should never have ticketed the car in the first place.

An ambiguous (I think) case could arise if the owner sends in his money in just the last day or two before the deadline, and the registration expired before the DMV receives or processes it. I think the owner is supposed to be covered in that case too. So there must necessarily be some implied “grace period” for that.

Note that CA registration periods run from an exact date to an exact date (for example, March 14 to March 14), yet the tag only specifies the month (March). So from that alone, you get a grace period of several days – from the exact day of expiration to the end of the month – depending on what day of the month it expires.

My car, for example, expires on the 18th of a certain month. So I have 12 days from then to the end of the month, and presumably an extra month before a cop would bother. I think the cop who ticketed the OP’s car was being a dick just for bothering to check the registration (assuming he even did that).

[kaylasdad99]

Funny thing is, my tags clearly say that my registration expires in November this year. Yet, I have a renewal notice in front of me that gives me until 08 December to complete my renewal.

[panamajack]

@Senegoid

There’s a separate but related issue.

The notice that comes with the registration renewal notice states (and has always stated for as long as I can remember) that, once you send in your renewal form and money that you may drive your vehicle on the roads, even though you haven’t actually received your new license plate tag yet. (I forget whether it specifies any one-month time limit on that.)

Thus, you can drive with an expired tag (for one extra month?) providing that you’ve sent in your renewal.

This seems to imply one of two possbilities:
(a) Cops will not try to enforce tags that are expired within one month of their expiration, or
(b) When cop sees a recently-expired tag, he can phone home to ask if the registration has been renewed.

I think as a practical matter, (b) is the case. (I have anecdotal evidence of the truth of this). However, I did once get a ticket this way in another county. He said if it was taken care of I ought to be able to contest it (except that I would have had to return to said county to do so; it was easier and cheaper to pay it).

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@Senegoid

Thus, you can drive with an expired tag (for one extra month?) providing that you’ve sent in your renewal.

This seems to imply one of two possbilities:
(a) Cops will not try to enforce tags that are expired within one month of their expiration, or
(b) When cop sees a recently-expired tag, he can phone home to ask if the registration has been renewed.

Or (more likely, IMO):
(c) When cop sees a recently-expired tag, he writes a ticket. Then you can go in front of a Judge, and try to prove you had already sent in your renewal.

[Senegoid]

@panamajack

I think as a practical matter, (b) is the case. (I have anecdotal evidence of the truth of this). However, I did once get a ticket this way in another county. He said if it was taken care of I ought to be able to contest it (except that I would have had to return to said county to do so; it was easier and cheaper to pay it).

Are you in CA? In some states (not CA), the license plates show what county the car is registered in. Cops know that a driver from a far-away county will be less likely to contest a ticket. They write up those on purpose, knowing that. I’m glad CA license plates don’t show the county.

ETA: BTW, I will add the the CA DMV seems to be very efficient about issuing renewal tags. Notices go out 60 days in advance (maybe more – maybe as much as 90 days in advance). Every time, after I send my renewal back in, I get the new tags in the mail is less than two weeks. By always renewing promptly, I’ve never had to fuck with this sort of shit.