Silly question for those outside Illinois

[BTM]

Okay, here's a question for everyone who lives outside of Illinois...

Do you guys have to "register" your cars every year, or anything like that?  You see, every year in Illinois we have to get a registration sticker which we put on the back of our license plate(s).  Why?  I have NO freaking clue... I suppose the official line is that it helps keep track of all the cars on the road in the state and make sure who the owners are, and blah, blah, blah.  I think it's all a bigass money scam, because it cost seventy-five freaking dollars to do this.  Yes, 75 bucks.

Now, I don't remember ever having to do this (or anything similar) when I lived in Missouri, and my friend Ed from California says they didn't have to do it over there (ironic considering CA is one of those high tax states.)  So, again, do you guys have to do something like this where ever you live?

Like I said, I think it's a big money scam... probably to go and "rebuild" our highways, which they tend to do at a snail's pace (right now there's a intersection by the hotel I work at that's been closed for an entire YEAR and they're still working on it.  Not to mention how this state is massively over budget and, to top it off, our wonderful governor just got indicted on Federal charges.

It makes my head hurt to think about it, especially since here I am thinking, maybe, I'll have a little extra money to make additional payments on some owed bills and perhaps, just perhaps, have a little extra for something wanted but not 100 percent essential (like some new shirts, as my old ones are getting holes in them), or perhaps a CD-ROM drive as my old one died a few weeks back, but instead I gotta hand over more money to the local government which does such a FINE job of managing what it's got.

I need some aspirin.

 

[ghouck]

In Alaska it's every 2 years, the wife's car was $160 last time, mine is probably more since it varies from car to car and mine costs more/weighs more/has a bigger engine/gets less mileage/goes faster/is newer/looks cooler/chicks dig it/has more head room (tilt steering). Not sure what decides the cost of registration, but surely it's one or more of those.

[Ash]

Here in Iowa we have to renew our tags each year.
It usually falls on the month you were born in and you have up to one month after that to get them renewed.

I think the cost of tag renewal is dependant on what type and year of vehicle you drive.
My Geo costs about $25 per year for the tags.
Not sure what my Bonneville will cost as I haven't owned it that long.

[Doctor Menard]

We have to get them registered every year in Kentucky. Of course, with that it requires proof of insurance, so you cannot get your car registered if you don't have insurance. Our fees aren't as high as your's; well, I own an older vehicle, and it is largely the taxes on the vehicle that one has to pay.

Now, what about these states where you apparently don't have to register your vehicle on a regular basis? How do they keep records on the vehicle? Is there some way of maintaining proof of insurance to keep your registration active? I imagine you'd have to at least get it registered every few years when a new plate is issued.

[ER]

Every state I've lived in required you to buy a tag every year. I understand registering cars, paying for your share of the roads, but mandatory insurance I don't support. It should be drive at your own risk, insure your own car if you want to. I've never had a ticket or a wreck and it bugs me that bad drivers cause my premiums to increase so often. Insure your own property or don't, who else's business is it? In that regard I'm very libertarian.

[dean]

Here we have to do it every year, depending on when you first registered it.  Car rego isn't cheap here either, though I can't quite remember how much it is [like above $200 or something]

[Jack]

Taxes?  You don't even know what taxes are until you've lived in Minnesota.  The annual registration fee is 1.25 of the vehicle's sticker price,  reduced by 10% per year or something.  Works out to right around $300 for the wife's SUV.  All taxes in Minnesota are like that - higher than just about anyplace else in the nation.  They just doubled the price of cigarettes a few years back - then explained to us that it wasn't really a tax, just money that the government takes from the workers and keeps for itself.  See, not a tax at all.  Luckily, we're only have a 5.2 BILLION budget shortfall this year. 

And they keep electing these same morons year after year. 

[Dennis]

Here in California you must renew your registration every year, this includes showing proof of insurance and, depending on the age of the vehicle, a smog test. The registration fee is based on the car's value and is higher for newer cars. Another scam the DMV runs is that if you own what is classified as a truck you must pay for commercial licence plates.

[schmendrik]

I've lived in NY, MD and PA. I've always had to register every year. What varies from state to state seems to be how often you had to get your car inspected, and how often you have to replace your license plates instead of just putting on a new sticker. In NY and PA you have to inspect your car every year. In MD, you only had to inspect the car when it changes ownership.

[trekgeezer]

In Arkansas you do it on the anniversary of acquiring the car.  We have to pay personal property tax also on cars and boats, so your car has to be assessed before you can get the registration renewed.  They have stream lined it since the old days, you can do it all online and they send the little tag and the registration in the mail.  We used to have to go down and stand in line at the revenue office to get it done.  Every few years they make you replace your license plate and you do have to that in person.


When I moved to Louisiana in 1980, you had to register your car only once every four years and it only cost $3 per year.  After the 80's oil bust they changed to every year and the amount depended on the weight of the vehicle.

[ghouck]

Insure your own property or don't, who else's business is it?

The person's property one damages and can not afford to pay for perhaps?

I understand people's complaints about mandatory insurance, but the truth is that in states where it is more strictly enforced, there are many less incidents of people getting stiffed by some idiot that causes damage they can't afford to fix. People point at the civil court system and such as a method of getting paid that is already in place, and that's just a joke. If a person doesn't have the money, you can't juts wring it out of them, and the whole "then they go to jail" idea is just plain dumb and creates more problems than it solves. Just the same as people have to be of a certain skill level and level of sobriety when on public roads, they should have to be of some level of fiscal responsibility.

That said, in most states you don't HAVE to have insurance, you can operate if you can PROVE you have the means to meet the minimum legal responsibility. I'm not sure exactly how this is done, but as I understand, there is a way.

I am also in favor of some shared responsibility system also. If I have a Ferrari Enzo, and you bump into it in a parking lot, I think it would be ludicrous for you to have to pay a $70,000 bill because I decided to take the most expensive to repair vehicle onto public roads.

It's a tough issue, but really, I don't see a better solution. Some think an "insure your own" system would be better, but then what happens to personal property that isn't normally insured or medical costs of a person without hospitalization? Worse yet, how many idiots do you think whould go out and buy some junker and make a sport out of "creaming Beamers", just to screw over the owners? I'd bet quite a bit.

[Edit]
Also, kleep in mind that I live in Alaska, the "drive without a license, insurance, or turn signals" capitol of the universe. The courts here do very little about it until a person has been busted a half a dozen times or so. I've known a few people to get screwed over because of people that just couldn't pay for what they damaged, and most of the time the guilty party could really care less.

[schmendrik]

In Arkansas you do it on the anniversary of acquiring the car.  We have to pay personal property tax also on cars and boats, so your car has to be assessed before you can get the registration renewed.

I never lived in VA, but when I was in the DC area (in Maryland) I heard my fair amount about Virginia politics. They had a personal property tax on cars, and it was a major sore point among residents. At least one candidate for governor ran on a platform of abolishing it. I have no idea whether it was actually repealed or not.

[Ash]

About that mandatory insurance thing...

In Iowa, you have to have insurance on your car.  It's the law.
What I find interesting about it is that you're required to show it when you register your vehicle for the first time.
After that, you don't need to show it.
I've got Geico covering my car right now, but for the last several years, I've renewed my tags repeatedly and have never had to show proof of insurance.  Heck, I can renew them online by paying with my credit/debit card and never have to set foot inside their office.  They just mail my tags to me.

I always wondered why they required proof the first year, but none the following years. 

[BTM]

In Alaska it's every 2 years, the wife's car was $160 last time, mine is probably more since it varies from car to car and mine costs more/weighs more/has a bigger engine/gets less mileage/goes faster/is newer/looks cooler/chicks dig it/has more head room (tilt steering). Not sure what decides the cost of registration, but surely it's one or more of those.

Oh, wow, sounds like you guys get hosed more than we do. 

Maybe that's part of the REAL reason Alaska has that hugeass budget surplus...

[Trevor]

I live wayyyyyyy outside of Illinois, so far that you can't even see me. 

Here in SA, we have to renew our license discs yearly ~ mine cost approximately 200 SA rand which is about $20. The license plates are changed every so often, especially when some town council official gets an itch in his underpants about change, all is change.

Here we have strange number plates (vanity plates are permitted but their cost is prohibitive): ours have letters, then numbers, and then the abbreviation of the province, so mine would look like POO123GP ~ the GP standing for Gauteng Province or as some say, Gangster's Paradise.