<VV> Re: VirtualVairs Digest, Vol 4, Issue 110

[mhicks130 at cox.net]

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Message: 3
Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 14:00:00 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tim Verthein <minoxphotographer at yahoo.com>
Subject: <VV> Re: VA antique vehicle plates-minimal Corvair

This talk about the police not being aware of the law has haunted us
here in Minnesota as well.  

<SNIP>

The police chief claimed it's nearly impossible for a local cop to keep
all the laws straight. Kinda like how the IRS can't understand it's own
rules, but enforces them anyway.

Just another one for the books.

Tim

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I understand that it's hard for cop on the street to keep up on the law but this guy has made it his special project to seek out vintage plate guys without inspection stickers and set them straight. Only he's WRONG!  I didn't have anyway to prove it this morning but I do now - I have printouts of the pertinent codes in the glovebox.  I'm just afraid he'll tell me the codes are wrong and he's right.  A court will (hopefully) set that straight but what a hassle! 

He actually had a laminated printout of portions of the laws pertaining to antique vehicles (not the part saying they are exempt BTW) and he was even interpreting THAT wrong.  It list approved uses of antique vehicles.  First it say you can use it to go to parades, shows and club functions.  Then it says "and" and list more uses: repairs and pleasure drives.  Then it says what you can't use it for (daily transportation essentially). He claimed that the first "and" tied the second set of approved activities to the first.  You could only take the car to a repair place on your to or from a show, parade or club function.  What what what??  

I actually think the problem is that VA has two applications for their antique/vintage plates.  The first is for collector cars that are used for shows etc but not daily driving.  They have no month/year stickers, you pay the DMV once, and the car is exempt from safety inspections.  The second kind is a daily driver but the daily driver plates have to have the month/year stickers, you have to get inspected and renew with the DMV yearly.  But it's the same plates.  The cop this morning could have written me a ticket for using my car in an unapproved way for antique plates but they'd have to prove it in court (I guess). Having the antique plates without year/month stickers just plain exempts me from inspections so that ticket would have been bogus.  

I'm going to send a letter (nice one) to the sherrif's department along with printouts of the codes.  Hopefully they'll figure it out.  Hopefully.

mike