quicksilver

I was parked in DC the today and, after a meeting took longer than expected, got back to find two tickets on my car. The first was for parking too long in a 2 hr spot and the second was for not having front tags. On the front tag ticket, I also noticed that they had requested that my car be towed!

Apparently, the cost of not having your front license plate in DC is a $50 fine, and then if you don't get to your car in time, it gets towed where you have to pay an additional $100 to get it out and the towing fee. At least $150+ as well as the hassle / possible car damage of having your car towed and getting it back just because you don't have your front license plate! Seems like an excessive price to pay for what, I think, is a very minor offense.

I live in MD and bought my S2000 in PA where they don't need front plates. My car did not come with any mounting hardware for the front. I have not had any problems with MD or other cops in the 4 years that I have owned the car. I always figured that they would give me a work order to have it put on if they did decide to get picky about it.

Anyone know what is up with this? How do they deal with people from states that don't use front plates? Why should DC be able to tell people from other jurisdictions what plates to have on their cars?

Besides ranting a bit, I wanted to let other S2000 owners know about this since a lot of us take the front plates off.

Greg

gfacter

DC meter maids are ruthless. I have to park in DC all the time but I only take my beater CRV. DC in general is a bad place to have a nice car.

I had no idea that you could get a ticket from another jurisdictions on the front tag, that's BS IMO, you could probally fight that, but the DC court system is F....ed up too.

My front tag has been in my garage since day one.

4theheckof_it

As far as I know.. DC cannot enforce their laws on other states licensed vehicles. You can always go to court and fight it, but in the end, they already towed your car on the day of violation and you are going to go through the hassle of fighting it anyways. Even though you are gonna win in court, I am not sure if they would even refund the tow charge.

Peter

Matt_in_VA

DC is a NIGHTMARE with a Capital N (get it? )

The problem with going to court in DC is win or lose you must pay the "court cost" to contest a ticket. Unless the "system" has changed in recent years.

So no matter how one looks at it one can not fight City Hall in the District.

I once got a ticket for parking at a broken parking meter. The law states that if the meter is broken you can legally park there for the alloted maximum time of the meter. I.E. One hour for a one hour max meter, two for a two hour meter. At the time about ten years ago it was a twenty-five dollar ticket and for me to fight it the court cost would have been eighteen dollars (win or loose) plus the time off work to sit in a court room for hours. Great "system" HUH?

S TWO K

Yup, they'll ticket you for everything they can think of. I came back to my car (registered in VA), and it had at least three tickets on it. Gtown is the worst area for this kind of stuff, no problems with other areas in DC. I was so annoyed that I ignored them and tried fighting them after it was to late.

So, each ticket doubled with the fines. It ws like $300 and some change I ended up paying for a bunch of BS.

I've given up, my front plate is now on.

TubeDriver

I don't run front plates on any of my cars and I have received 1-2 tickets in 15 years. I'll pay the fine when it happens and no points. My wife did get a no tag ticket in DC. We just payed it and now when we park down there we put the tag on the dashboard. But we are not in DC that often. The towing part worries me though, towing a car in DC because of no front plate? Like there are not more important crime considerations to be focusing on?

DiamondDave2005

The focus isn't crime, it's money, as with most traffic laws.

Don't forget, with no front plate, they might not catch you with the photo radar, so front plates are important!

quicksilver

I figured that it was mostly about money. From everyone's comments, I guess I will just pay the tickets and avoid driving in DC as much as possible. If I have to go in, I will bring the plate to put in the window but who knows if that will satisfy the meter maids. Especially if they are just trying to tax people from outside DC.

Fed

3 no front plate tickets from DC a 2 from MD. Both times in MD the cop pulled me over for no other reason that not having th front plate. To me there is no point in contesting them. In DC you have to pay the court fees, so might as well pay the ticket, and save yourself the hassle of driving down there, and risking getting another ticket. BTW my no plates tickets in DC were all issued late at night i.e 2, 3 in the morning.

papa5murf

i've gotten at least 3 no front license plate tickets in dc in my civic... they are all dumb....i even got one when the plate was on my dash..... and i've never had any problems in va or md with it off....

i don't think they charge the court fee because once i got a ticket for supposidly having expired tags.... the dmv didn't send me the little stickers so i just had a recipt that i printed out (extra large) and placed it on my dash right next to my plate and still got a ticket... obviously i took it to court and they threw it out.. didn't have to pay anything.. but did waste a bunch of time and money on parking in the parking lot...

you can also contest the ticket by mail... you should call and ask them questions about that... just take a picture of yoru car with the tag on it.. and send it in with a letter.... they should throw it out..