Thousands of Washington drivers are hitting the roads illegally, according to new data from CARFAX. Nearly 600,000 vehicles in the state have expired registration tabs—costing Washington millions in lost revenue. – ht/ JDHasty
18 Comments on 600k Drivers Caught with Expired Tabs in Washington State
Comments are closed.
PRO TIP — When stealing license plates in the state of Washington, double check to be sure they’re not expired.
When you do finally get the tabs you are going to pay for every eyear you missed.
Twice voters overwhelmingly approved $30 Cat Tabs initiatives. Twice judges said the voters didn’t understand what they were voting for. A lot of people just don’t license their vehicles any longer here.
Tabs? or Tags?
They are worried about the costs of people free-riding on the car tags, eh?
That’s rich.
Do they require illegals to tag their cars?
Im always about a month or two behind when paying for my tabs here in NoDak. It’s not intentional; it’s just always an afterthought being that they only cost me about $57 a year. The trick is on how to not get caught. Being that we have snow 6 months out of the year, simply pack snow on your plate thus concealing your tabs. I’ve been doing this little trick for about 20 years now. Havent been pulled over once for expired tabs once yet.
I would assume that the tab is visable and changes color every year on your DOB.
Sounds like the police are complicit in ignoring the problem.
Curious how this works for insurance claims.
The color of the tab (sticker) changes by year on month of renewal. This is more “Boston Tea Party” than most as the state repeatedly ignores the $30 tab initiative by applying “excise taxes” and “gross vehicle weight” taxes on top of the base registration which collectively are in the 100s-1000s of dollars range. For example: the state is pretty darn sure the value of my 1997 Ford Explorer with 300k miles is $3500. Actual value? $300 on a good day, if the tank is full. It gets worse for electric vehicles as they “get to pay” an electric vehicle surcharge since they, obviously, don’t pay any gas tax.
It wouldn’t be so bad except much of the money goes to non-road projects, and the engineering, when the decades transpire, sucks for vehicles as “our betters” are pretty sure we hoi palloi need to take mass transit.
We call them Tags here in Ohio. I thot tabs were associated with LSD… but then we are talking about Washington State.
Odd nomenclature. Here in FL we keep our plate (singular) current by putting on the new sticker.
Running expired for a while doesn’t save you any money. If your sticker expired in May and you didn’t get a new one until July, you’re good only until next May.
The whole process is annoying, but at least FL has the option to renew for two years instead of only one.
Tags here in NY also. DMV won’t send a sticker update pastie until they get money, they do send a reminder in the mail though. They also find ways to spend road “repair fees” on things other than crater hole road maintenance. Lots of other things/BS.
My 2009 Subaru Forester costs me just under $100 dollars a year to license. And I agree with JDHasty about the $30 dollar a year license fee. Tim Eyman and Wash. state voters were hosed twice by our democrap legislature against the will of the people.
During last year living in MN I didn’t renew the tabs. They stopped ticketing for expired plates (unless you were stopped for some other reason) and it was my small way of saying FU to the state.
You should not have to register a vehicle but one and done. Until it changes hands. Once a year is bullshit. Just another way to screw people out of money.
That’s a lotta tax money the state could use to house, feed, hospitalize, educate, and prosecute illegal gang bangers-future democrats. Welp, looks like Ferguson is gonna hafta raise taxes again.
^^^ Bman SATURDAY, 12 JULY 2025, 7:14 AT 7:14 AM Got pulled over in Colorado for having snow covering my plate after a 6 inch snowfall. Probably just an excuse to pull me over so he could run me thru the system.
If you have an older car that’s a collector vehicle you only have to license it once and never again. My son has my dad’s 72 Chevy 3/4-ton camper long bed pickup truck, and it has collector plates.
OT:
I remember this when it first happened and couldn’t believe the same judge who released a child molester to kidnap her, put a gag order on the family.
The courts did not do their job and obviously LE was not protecting their daughter, so the father did what he had to do.
He should be given a medal not a 2nd degree murder charge.
The judge should be removed from the bench, ultimately it’s all her fault that he kidnapped the daughter and now is dead.
https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2025/06/24/more-details-out-on-fathers-killing-of-man-accused-of-molesting-13-year-old-daughter