fred thomas wrote:
> Ed, ... Take your own tags from home ...
Wait! Hold the farm! Do NOT pass go, do not collect
$200, go directly to jail.
Do NOT switch tags from one car to another. This is
a VERY BAD idea. Switching tags from one vehicle to
another is a *criminal* offense, not just a civil
violation. Been there, done that, didn't get a
T-shirt.
If you want the whole story, read on...
------
In the summer of '94, before I bought my existing Triumph,
I went to see a TR6 for sale in Billerica, Massachusetts.
The car was in fair condition, and looked a lot worse than I
would have liked, but the owner said I really had to drive
it, as it was a great driver. The car had current license
plates on it, even though it hadn't been inspected yet,
so I took it for a quick spin, without the owner.
I drove the car about 2 miles out down a typical medium
size rural Massachusetts road, and turned into a housing
development to turn around. (The car drove OK, but wasn't
anything exceptional -- one of the major features was a
completely "binary" clutch. I decided at that point
not to buy the car.) I drove a loop around the housing
development, went back to the main road, and waited to
make a left turn. Wouldn't you know, there was a cruiser
with one of Billerica's finest, coming my way from the
right, with his blinker on to make a left turn into the
housing development. He proceeds up to the turn, and stops
for oncoming traffic.
As the traffic clears, however, he waves me out first --
ut oh, now I have to turn left in front of him while he
watches, with this binary clutch... I manage to make a good
left turn without lighting the tires or stalling, however,
and feel all is fine. Yet, as soon as I make the left turn,
on come the rolling lights behind me, and I pull over to the
side of the road.
The officer comes over to the side of the car, and asks
for my license, registration, and insurance. I ask what the
problem is as I start to get my license out, and he mentions
that the inspection sticker is a color he hasn't seen in a long
time -- at least 3 years out of date. I explain that the
car isn't mine, and that I was on a test drive for a potential
purchase (on the passenger seat, I have my pile of checklists,
ad information, and other notes I take with me when inspecting
a TR for sale.)
He asks where the owner lives, what I think of the car, and
how much the guy was asking. I answer all of these questions,
and the officer seems fairly interested in the car. I think
"Great, he's a Triumph fan, and will let me off with just a
warning, and let me know what the law says about test drives
on non-inspected vehicles." I hand him my license, and hunt
through the glovebox for the registration and proof of insurance.
I come up with both; the insurance card is current, but the
registration is from a few years back, and hand them over. He
then proceeds back to the cruiser.
Before he even gets back to his car, he returns, and says that
the plates on the car don't match the registration I had found.
I then search through the glovebox for a more recent registration,
but find only older registrations with the same tag number that
don't match that currently on the TR6.
He again returns to his car, while I sit in the TR, working on a
tan. I decide that this is going to take a while, and turn the
TR off, as it was pretty low on gas. I'm starting to really wonder
what kind of a mess I'm in.
After a short while, he comes back, and tells me that the
plates on the car are not for the TR6, but are for a late-model
Buick which registered to the wife of the person listed on the
registration we found in the TR. He asks me what is going on. I
explain that when I showed up to the seller's house, that the TR6
was wearing the plates that it had on it now. The seller said nothing
to me about switching plates, and I didn't see any cars with no
plates. He then explains that driving an unregistered vehicle is
against the law. Yet, that is only a civil offense. However,
swapping tags from one vehicle to another, with the intent of
having an unregistered vehicle appear registered is a *criminal*
offense. However, since I had no knowledge that the vehicle was
unregistered, both offenses would be attributed to the owner, not
me. Whew, I breathe a sigh of relief. He also mentions that
he has called a tow truck, which will come and get the car, since
he can't let me drive it back to the seller's house. He proceeds
to write out the pair of violations, along with a court date, for
*ME* to take back to the owner and present to him. I ask the
officer if he would drive me to the owner's house, and present
the violations to the owner, but the police officer doesn't seem
particularly keen on this, saying something like, "If you really
can't take them back, I can take them over later today." I decide
that I'm better off having the violations with me when I go back,
so at least I have some proof this all happened!
Then the flatbed tow truck shows up, and I get a receipt for the
towing of the car, plus instructions on what the owner will need
to do to free the car for impounding. I then walk back to the
owner's house, explain all that transpired, and am asked to wait
while he calls his lawyer. The lawyer makes it clear to him that
he is in *deep* trouble, and that the only way to get out of this
is to indicate that he intended to *transfer* the registration from
the Buick to the TR6. This would be a contorted mess with DMV, which
would cost him a few hundred dollars before he was finished, but would
hopefully this would extricate him from the criminal charges. The
lawyer made it clear that I wasn't at fault, but should give them my
name and number in case they ever needed to contact me. I left, and
never heard from them again...
------
Anyway, my two cents are *NOT* to do this. If you wish to minimize
your involvement with the police and the legal system, get
"temporary" tags from the local DMV for the model car you would
like to get -- explain to them *exactly* what you are doing, and
they should be able to issue you a set of temporary plates (10 day
or similar) for this purpose. Take this with you to the show to
drive back what you buy.
Better yet, borrow a big truck and a trailer...
--ken
'74 TR6 Daily Driver
VTR WWW Maintainer -- http://www.vtr.org
--
Kenneth B. Streeter | EMAIL: streeter@sanders.com
Sanders, PTP2-A001 |
PO Box 868 | Voice: (603) 885-9604
Nashua, NH 03061 | Fax: (603) 885-0631
|