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Effective 12/31/16, PennDOT will no longer issue Vehicle Registration stickers
Why is PennDOT going to stop issuing registration stickers?
Elimination of registration stickers will result in a significant cost savings for taxpayers. Act 89, which became law November 2013, provided for the elimination of vehicle registration stickers. The elimination of the registration sticker was evaluated as part of a Penn State research study, which concluded that eliminating the registration sticker has no impact on vehicle registration compliance.
Do I still have to register my vehicle?
Yes. Act 89 merely eliminated the requirement to place a registration sticker on your license plate effective December 31, 2016. Customers are still required to maintain current vehicle registration, and must present a registration card to law enforcement when asked. A valid registration card is also still required when having a safety and/or emissions inspection completed
How much money will be saved by not issuing the stickers?
The elimination of the registration sticker will realize a cost savings to taxpayers of $1.1 million per year; it is estimated an additional $2 million will be saved in mailing costs.
How will law enforcement know my car is registered?
Law enforcement agencies have electronic access to PennDOT’s database from their patrol vehicles, which allows them to verify if a vehicle registration is valid. In addition, many use license plate reader technology to efficiently validate registrations.
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Gee, just renewed the registration on my wife's car and, along with the registration card, we received a license plate sticker dated 1/18.
So, I guess the DOT just wanted to make sure we were double covered. But it's hard to see a cost savings when they're still issuing stickers through 2018.
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Sounds ok with me.
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Are our police vehicles equipped with license plate scanners?
I recall a big flap about the systems in the vehicles scanning every plate within range, comparing to the DMV database, and generating an alert if something's wrong.
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Conspiracy Theory wrote:
Are our police vehicles equipped with license plate scanners?
I recall a big flap about the systems in the vehicles scanning every plate within range, comparing to the DMV database, and generating an alert if something's wrong.
Many (but by no means all) are so equipped. The scanners look like mini spoilers on the sides of the trunk lid.
There was a homicide that was committed in the Dillsburg area about 2 years ago which was solved, in part, by a license plate scanner deployed in another state. The perp had fled but the scanner caught his plate, database showed that the owner was wanted, and the officer was alerted and brought him to justice.
Just another variation on the old saying "you can't outrun the radio".
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Conspiracy Theory wrote:
Are our police vehicles equipped with license plate scanners?
I recall a big flap about the systems in the vehicles scanning every plate within range, comparing to the DMV database, and generating an alert if something's wrong.
There were two issues that I recall when the plate scanners first came out.
The first one that civil libertarians has was that law enforcement has been very elusive about what happens to the data once it is collected by this scanners.
If you are driving along and your plate is scanned, it goes to a police database and comes back clean. But the government now has a record of your location, time of day, etc. Is that kept forever? Is it deleted? What else might happen to the data? Can it be sold? Who else has access to it?
This was a big issue in York a couple of years ago and the police would not offer insight into those questions.
The other issue I recall is that police would drive through parking lots and look for plates where a driver had a warrant for a minor issue, like an unpaid parking ticket, and then wait for the driver to show up and arrest them. This typically affected minorities.
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While still living in northern Virginia local police would drive thru apartment building parking lots, shopping center lots and most other parking lots where many cars would be parked during the day and or night. They mainly would be looking at vehicles not displaying current county (personal property) stickers and current inspection stickers. I'm sure if they picked up on other issues like stolen license plates and the like they were dealt with accordingly. All as far as I am aware all were perfectly legal and as long as I was a resident I don't recall any concerns over privacy issues. Vehicle owners had a great disdain for having to pay the annual property tax on all vehicles they owned so locating outdated stickers by the police was a big money maker for the counties.
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fg,
Unless things have changed, VA cops had to enter the year of registration along with the plate # in order to obtain owners information. They could not simply enter the plate #--had to have both.
So that money-maker was slow and labor intensive, but I"m sure the bean-counters had determined that it was cost effection.