In court for no insurance/registration what to expect?

You’re joking. It’s well known. There are documentaries about this.

Yeah. Chained Heat (1983)?

https: //www.youtube.com/ watch?v=UwLomqKSSDc

Link broken.

It probably should have been shattered.

I feel like this would be somewhat hard to buy in New York City. There’s tons of places in the U.S. where you can’t reasonably get around without a car, but NYC isn’t one of them. Were I a judge, I would not be inclined to be lenient after that explanation.