OK, I feel sorry for the guy, it wasn’t his car; and his girlfriend left him while she went shopping while he did the “man” thing… He was probably wondering if he was going to spend the afternoon answering the “deadly question, ‘Does this make me look fat?’ …” So his mind was probably not on the task at hand…
I agree, he gets no reprieve and after reading the many responses, my wife says, “Sounds like my license plates…”
So I guess I need to share my guilt too.
It was about 1990 and it was the second time we were stationed in Virginia. We are very punctual about sending in the application for a new car registration when it comes in the mail… Virginia DMV was fast in returning the new registration and stickers and the old registration was not up until the end of next month. The new insurance cards had not come yet so I put off the “swap out” of the paperwork and the stickers. When the insurance cards arrived we were having a very wet rainy period and I put it off until it was dry (we had no garage then and the cars were parked outside…). Well, like a lot of mail, the car registration slowly got covered with new stuff…
Fast forward about a month, it is now two weeks into the month after the registration on my wife’s car expired and she is on her way to work and the police pull her over for Expired Plates. She pulls out the registration and the insurance card and they are both last years… She gets out and checks the plates and she sees the old stickers… So she is ticketed… I guess she was lucky (or rather I was…) that the car was not towed…
So she gets home and we find all the new stuff: the registration, the stickers, the insurance card, still sitting in the “To-Do” bowl in the Kitchen.
We check the law and the Virginia Code is quite specific, it must be “displayed” (stickers on the plates…) and the paperwork (registration and insurance card) must be carried in the vehicle…
So, we go to the DMV and get copies of both our driving records, a letter from the Insurance Agent, our insurance policy, the cancelled checks for the insurance and the registration to prove the we paid for the registration the month before it was even due…
At court, my wife pleads “Guilty, but with extenuating circumstances.” Her words, “A lazy ass husband who did not put the stickers on the plates or the paperwork in the car…”
The judge looked over the paperwork, a clean driver’s record, no accidents, the early payment for the registration and the Dismissed the case, no fines and no court costs… But he did not let me off easily and although he thought it was funny, he made sure I knew it was no laughing matter…
I do not put off putting the new stickers on now and I take care of the Insurance cards as soon as they arrive. The Judge may have let us off, but I sometimes think I’m still serving “Life without parole…” for putting my wife in that position…