Once upon a time I lived on the west coast. Then one day I moved to the east coast. That's a big move. It took a lot of work and a lot of money.
There are a lot of things that need to be taken care of when you move, and one of those things is getting your car registered in your new state. When we moved to Boston, our car registration from our old state still had a few months left before expiring. I decided to wait until the old plates were about to expire before registering my car in Massachusetts. This seemed like a good idea to save both time and money.
It wasn't.
One Friday afternoon, a few months after our move, I was pulled over by the meanest cop in all of Massachusetts. Hereafter referred to as "Mustache Man." So Mustache Man pulls me over and asks about my out of state plates (which have not expired and are still valid by the way!) and chews me out for not registering my car in Massachusetts. Apparently the law says I have to register within 60 days of moving. I didn't know that. I was sorry. Mustache man didn't care. He was on a rampage to rid the world of out of state license plates! He gave me a $200 ticket and told me I had to get my car registered and bring proof to the police station by 4PM the following Monday.
I cried. I drove home. I cried some more. I was mad that I had to pay a $200 fine, but I was really mad that he had been so mean to me! Why do people have to be so mean? I'm a nice person. People should be nice to me!
First thing Monday morning, my husband and I went down to the courthouse and registered our car. Then we took our new Massachusetts plates over to the police station to show proof of compliance. When we got there, we explained to the officer what had happened and told him we were here to show proof of registration as I had been instructed. The officer on duty looked at us and laughed. Laughed! "He had a mustache?" he asked. I said yes, he did. He told us we really didn't need to come in. He also suggested that I appeal the ticket in traffic court. He said that they usually cut a ticket in half just for showing up. Good deal!
So I went home feeling slightly better, and sent in my letter requesting to appeal the ticket. A few weeks later I received a notice from the city telling me that I had a court date scheduled. I put the letter away in a super safe place where I wouldn't forget it. And then I forgot it.
Months later I was running errands, all five kids were in the car, and the topic of traffic laws came up. The kids were asking questions like What happens if you speed? What is a ticket? What happens if you don't pay it? What is traffic court? That is the moment my heart stopped. My mind raced back to that letter announcing my court date, and I remembered that not only was it TODAY but it was in 20 MINUTES!
I would have had just enough time to make it if I had actually known where I was going. But I didn't. I called a friend and asked her to look up the address for me (because I'm too cheap to own a phone that can do that kind of thing for me). It wasn't an easy address to find either since I wasn't even sure what the building was called... the Central City Municipal Center of Eastern Courts' City Central Building Center... or something like that. After several false trails, I finally made it to where I was going and was even blessed to find parking within two blocks. I jumped out of my car and ran into the building like a mad woman with my five children trailing behind.
Luckily the court was running behind schedule, so my munchkin posse and I slid into a bench to wait our turn. Good thing I was totally prepared with snacks and quiet games so my kids were happy and entertained the whole time. Oh wait, all I had was two pens and a piece of gum. But they did manage to sit remarkably still and quiet (perhaps being so near the jail helped). There were twenty people scheduled ahead of me. As I waited, I watched every one of them take their turn to approach the judge (with lawyers by their side!) and plead innocent. Each had a long and legal excuse why they weren't guilty. When my turn arrived, I walked to the judge, handed over my paperwork and gushed my confession. I did it! I should have registered my car earlier, and I'm sorry. I'm really only here because I was just hoping you might cut the ticket in half?
The judge rolled his eyes and swore under his breath. The officer there representing the city actually laughed out loud. He looked at the name on my ticket, then looked at me and said, "Mustache Man?" (Okay, he really called him by his actual name.) In less than 30 seconds, the judge signed my papers, handed them back to me, and said, "Dismissed!"
So there you have it: How to save money by delaying your car registration and attending traffic court. Easy as pie... you know that really difficult to make pie, where the crust keeps splitting, and you forget to add the sugar, and it comes out burnt...
Kate
*Note: Neither the author nor her affiliates recommend driving an unregistered car, taking children to court, or calling an officer of the law "Mustache Man" to his face.
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