Ticket?
In some states driving without insurance isn’t a ticket, it’s an arrest and appearing before a judge with possible Nasty Penalties.
I went to renew my registration this week. I was required to provide proof of insurance.
I doubt that we have different laws from one town to another. What we will have is local authority rules and regs.
For example: the Council Tax in say Rochdale, Lancs will be different from that in Burnley, Lancs even though the two places are only about 25 miles apart.
However, the penalties for speeding will be the same
Oh yeah, we’re much more complicated than that.
States have the right to make their own laws as long as they don’t violate federal laws. However, for example, marijuana is federally illegal but some states permit it’s medical use and fines / enforcement measures vary from a small ticket in some places to charges of posession-by-consumption in others.
To make it worse the states are divided into counties that often work the same way. Counties have the right to create and enforce their own ordinances that can vary from county to county as long as they don’t infringe on the state / federal laws.
The same with cities, towns and townships that are incorporated and have an independant government.
On all levels the main deterrent to inconsistancy is money. A town can pass an ordinance but if it is not in agreement with the county the funding could be cut. The same way with a county, state, etc. By having a local law (city, county or state level) that is in conflict with a higher law the jurisdiction risks losing funding or facing penalties and the citizens, while free from prosecution on a local level, may still be subject to penalties from a higher source.
That’s why I can’t smoke in a restaurant in Greenwood IN or in Franklin IN (about 15 miles apart), but nested inbetween, in the small town of Whiteland IN I am free to fire up a Winston while waiting for my eggs. (unless I am in an establishment where such an activity is restricted by the owner)
In Queensland, the registration plates on the car stay there forever, and all you as the owner do is renew the car’s registration, which also includes Compulsory 3rd Party Insurance (ie, insurance for if you injure someone, not vehicular damage).
There’s no law at all against driving around without Motor Vehicle Insurance, but it’s obviously not a good idea as it makes you personally liable for damages to vehicles or property in the event of an at-fault accident.
Driving your car unregistered, however, also has the effect of meaning you have no CTP insurance, which is a Very Bad Thing and will get you in a lot of trouble.
You renew your car registration either every 6 months or every year (depending on how much you feel like spending), and they mail you out a sticker that goes on your windscreen so the police (and parking wardens!) know you’re up to date.
Same in UK with a few exceptions, the main one being that it is illegal to drive uninsured and we can also tax our cars at a post office as well as at DVLA
But do they have to set the same speed limit? Also, can they have different laws about other things, or are all the laws made nationally? For example, although the sale and purchase of alcoholic beverages is completely legal in the US and in the state of NJ, there are a few “dry” towns in which it is not. Different towns often have different laws about when bars are required to close, also.
Speed limits/drinking/smoking/raping, looting and pillaging laws are the same wherever you go in the UK and are set by the Gummint.
Local authorities have no powers to set their own laws but they can determine small matters but only if they do not conflict in any way with UK law as a whole
This might be a regional thing. Around here (Southern California) the sheet-metal rectangles they make for us at the state prison are just “license plates”, never “tags”. The “tags” are the stickers we get when we pay our registration and mount on the “plates”.
You now have to present proof of insurance before you can renew your registration.
You’re slightly self-contradictory here, with speed limits being a good example of the second paragraph. Local authorities do have the power to set lower speeds than the national limit at locations where they consider it appropriate. And the issuing of alcohol licences, including late licences, is in the hands of LAs as well, within national parameters.
(Be careful with that ‘anywhere in the UK’ broad brush - don’t forget that we’ve nearly washed our hands of Scotland entirely 
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Hmmm…I guess you’re right about the speed limits but what I was really meaning was that by and large speed limits on M/ways, A & B roads are determined by the Gummint.
So far as booze licences are concerned: It is/was my understanding that late licences are a thing of the past now that 24 hour guzzling is permitted.
As far as Bonnie Scotland is I do believe that raping, looting and pillaging is classified as a National sport along with haggis hunting 
I don’t think it’s quite as simple as that, you can’t just decide to open up whenever you please. You still have to apply for the licence and of course the local authority/ police/ neighbours can all have their input - then perhaps, you can open up 24 hours a day. 
Here’s the relevant act.
Would it seem so odd if Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland each had their own distinct motor vehicle laws. The situation in Canada is similar to the US in that each province has its own MV laws. Quebec requires insurance, but I’ve never been asked to prove it, except when stopped by a cop. Then they want to see my insurance card, which seems to mean that there is no record of it in the provincial data base, at least none he can access. Every driver in Quebec is automatically covered for bodily injury through a premium collected when renewing the driver’s licence. But you have to get your own for property damage and, if you choose to, collision. My car is 15 years old and I’ve dropped the latter.
Yes, some provinces in Canada run provincial insurance programs (British Columbia comes to mind) where renewal of the license plate (or “registration”) includes paying the insurance premium, although there are options to pay in installments I understand. Catching people driving without insurance is a regular thing in Canada, and also I assume the USA. Best case, it’s a ticket and a warning. Worst case here, car is impounded, towed since it can’t be driven, and there’s a hefty fine.
I even heard of someone getting their car towed because they parked it out in front of the house to do repairs instead of the gravel driveway. The police decided to be dicks and tow the car on the public road that wasn’t properly licensed.
I knew a fellow who used Ontario’s “Uninsured Driver’s Fund” back in the 1970’s, when such a thing existed. Basically, you payed $X/year (for some reason, $75 comes to mind - those were simpler times…) If you had an accident and were liable, the fund paid the costs and your license was suspended until you reimbursed them. This guy had a accident and owed some serious money, but moved west. He came back for Christmas to visit the family, and got pulled over halfway through Ontario. He was allowed to park his car (at a motel closed for the winter) instead of having it impounded and towed, and they could have given him a ticket ($$$) too. He had to finish his trip by Greyhound - apparently an ordeal for all - him, his wife, their 2 month old baby, and all the rest of the bus passengers listening to a screaming child. We went to get his car for him in the spring, and drove it back out of Ontario - amazingly it sat 4 months in the winter weather and started first try.
In Canada, as I understand, all criminal law is federal. Provinces can make laws, but they cannot be criminal - more regulatory things like hunting and fishing, traffic, commerce, etc. These can still get you sent to jail (but no more than 2 years?). Cities and counties can only do bylaws, fines but no jail. It amazes me that in the USA some states, cities can make laws that land someone with jail time.
Actually, they do, to some extent at least. The national speed limit for trucks in England was raised from 40 to 60 mph a few years back. In Scotland, it stayed at 40. (This applies to roads not designated as motorways). NI has its own Register too.
You need proof of insurance when one registers a car (in my state). But if you don’t pay next month’s bill, your insurance will be cancelled, the DMV is notified and you are notified by the insurance company. Nobody shows up at your house to remove your tags/plates. But some people break the law and keep driving anyway. Unless one accesses the DMV database, your car appears to be legal.
As far as Judge Judy is concerned, driving without insurance is evidence of being a scofflaw. Being a scofflaw is probably why the uninsured is in court in the first place. Scofflaws usually disavow any liability in an accident. I’ve seen a scofflaw ignore a court’s order to pay the plaintiff. The think they are above the law.
In the United States, states make their own traffic laws. However, they somehow manage to make their laws approximately standardized nationwide.
To do this, the states have a consortium that develops proposals for traffic laws, which individual states’ legislatures are free to make law in their states, or not. This includes not only the driving rules, but also things like standards for signage, lane markings and other markings on the pavement, and traffic control lights.
I believe that most (but maybe not quite all?) states participate in this consortium, and state legislatures, for the most part, agree to follow the proposed standards. Thus, throughout the United States, there is substantial uniformity in the laws, signage, pavement markings, and such – although some details differ.
Plus, IIRC, the Feds set rules for interstates etc. IIRC, the 55mph speed limit was set by the federal government in the 70’s oil crisis to reduce gas consumption. Basically, if the state wanted a share of federal money for roads, they had to meet the requirement of a maximum 55 limit on all highways. IIRC Montana decided not to and notoriously has some highways with no speed limits.
The proper point to be made here is that the Feds didn’t (and couldn’t?) actually mandate a nationwide speed limit, but instead used the “power of the purse” to goad (some would say extort) the states into compliance. The same happened, or something similar, with the nationwide rules for using seat belts.
Nope, that ended in 1998. All Montana highways have speed limits now after the MT Supreme Court ruled that “reasonable and prudent” was unconstitutionally vague.
True, and it was made 14 years ago
Washington is one of the easiest states to get away without being insured, close to 20% of the drivers in the state are uninsured. A police officer friend of mine thinks it’s higher. He works in a small rural town. He said about 2/3 of the people he pulls over for traffic offenses are uninsured. He gives them a $580 ticket, they buy a 30 day policy from Mutual of Padoink for $50, the ticket gets dismissed and they are back on the road with no insurance a month later.