Can a state suspend my license and not tell me about it? A Iowa-registered driver was on the highway in Indiana, US, going 26 mph over the speed limit. The driver was pulled over and was fined. The driver went and payed the fine in person and resolved the ticket. A few months later, when the driver went to the Ohio BMV to attempt to transfer his license to his new home state, he was informed (for the first time), that his license was suspended for the next 3 months. According to a phone call the driver had with the Iowa DOT, in Iowa, if a driver gets cited for going more than 20 mph over the speed limit, they must complete a defensive driving course within a number of days. If they don’t, they risk a 6 month suspension of their license. I wasn’t able to find this information in the Iowa’s Driver Manual. The Iowa DOT had sent a letter to the driver, which was returned to the sender. The Iowa DOT had a record of the letter being returned. They had not attempted to contact the driver further. Thus, the driver had no way of knowing of the requirements needed to keep his license valid. This seems like a problem in the Iowa DOT, and shouldn’t have afflicted the driver with the consequences it did. Is there any way to challenge this decision? What steps could be taken?
It seems that the Iowa authorities did attempt to notify the driver. If the letter of notification was returned because the driver changed his or her address, that is not the DOT's fault -- drivers are supposed to notify the authorities of changes of address -- indeed driving with a license with an out-of-date address is itself a violation in some US states. If the error was made by the postal service, that is still not the DOT's fault but they might be more willing to accept an appeal from the driver. In general, authorities must make a reasonable attempt to notify people of court or administrative actions, but if those notifications fail, the authorities can go ahead in many cases. Try explaining that one doesn't owe taxes because an IRS notice was misdelivered. It would be too easy to avoid unwanted governmental actions if nondelivery of mail were a valid excuse. It may well be that there is a procedure to get the suspension waived or ended early, perhaps involving taking the class that should have been taken, and perhaps paying an additional fine. Details of such procedures vary. A local lawyer who deals with traffic issues frequently would probably know what steps might be taken. It may well be that the original ticket mentioned a possible suspension, but it may not have. That also varies by state.
The only specific prohibition of &quot;backing&quot; is at s. 157 of the Highway Traffic Act: 157 (1) No driver of a vehicle shall back the vehicle upon the roadway or shoulder of any highway divided by a median strip1 on which the speed limit is in excess of 80 kilometres per hour ... However, there is a careless driving prohibition: 130 (1) Every person is guilty of the offence of driving carelessly who drives a vehicle or street car on a highway without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for other persons using the highway. And there is the Criminal Code's dangerous driving offence: 320.13 (1) Everyone commits an offence who operates a conveyance in a manner that, having regard to all of the circumstances, is dangerous to the public. It would be misleading to say that it is absolutely &quot;legal&quot; or &quot;allowed&quot; to &quot;drive in reverse on a non-divided road that has a speed limit of more than 80 km/h&quot;. It just isn't prohibited by s. 157(1) of the Highway Traffic Act. 1. Note that &quot;divided&quot; in the question was just a paraphrase of &quot;divided by a median strip.&quot; There are many sections of road in Ontario that are not divided in that sense, with speed limits above 80 km/h, including much of the trans-Canada highway.
No, not for 1+ years See section 47 of the Motor Vehicle Act 1988: (1) When a motor vehicle registered in one State has been kept in another State, for a period exceeding twelve months, the owner of the vehicle shall, within such period and in such form containing such particulars as may be prescribed by the Central Government, apply to the registering authority, within whose jurisdiction the vehicle then is, for the assignment of a new registration mark and shall present the certificate of registration to that registering authority: [...] Related: 1 2
People in the UK (who are not subject to immigration control or other restrictions) do not have to carry any form of identification. This doesn't answer all parts of your question, but s164 Road Traffic Act 1988 is appropriate to the part about driving. a person driving a motor vehicle on a road ... must, on being so required by a constable or vehicle examiner, produce his licence and its counterpart1 for examination, so as to enable the constable or vehicle examiner to ascertain the name and address of the holder of the licence, the date of issue, and the authority by which they were issued. (s164(1)) So it makes no difference why you were stopped: a constable or traffic offiver can demand production of your licence if you were driving. The same power exists if you're suspected of having caused an accident or committed an offence, even if you're not driving at the time of the production demand. Non-production is an offence: If a person required under the preceding provisions of this section to produce a licence and its counterpart ... fails to do so he is, subject to subsections (7) to (8A) below, guilty of an offence. (s164(6)) However, it is a defence to produce the licence (or a receipt for a licence) within seven days of the demand (s164(7-8)). In practice, the officer will give you a 'producer' requiring you to present your licence at a police station within seven days, after which you will be guilty of the non-production offence. The implication of this is that it is not required that you carry your licence; merely that you have it available to produce within seven days. 1 Presumably the reference to 'counterpart' will go away when the counterpart is abolished on 8th June 2015.
The state of Washington does not have an absolute requirement that vehicles must be registered. What it has is RCW 46.16A.030 (2): (2) It is unlawful for a person to operate any vehicle on a public highway of this state without having in full force and effect a current and proper vehicle registration and displaying license plates on the vehicle. Therefore you already have a means to comply with the law: simply refrain from operating this vehicle on any public highway of the state of Washington. In other words, don't drive or park it on public roads; keep it on private property. (In many states, &quot;operating&quot; includes parking; I could not immediately find out whether this is the case in Washington.) So now your question instead becomes: &quot;What is the state's obligation to make it possible for me to lawfully drive this particular vehicle on the public roads?&quot; And the answer to that is much more clearly, &quot;none&quot;. Driving in general is considered a privilege and not a right, so your &quot;personal liberty&quot; is not at issue. The state is not doing a good job of providing a service which they generally do provide, which is certainly annoying, but is not a legal issue, and does not give you the right to break the law. I have considered proceeding with the restoration, and drafting an &quot;Affidavit in lieu of registration&quot; document detailing my numerous attempts to follow the process, and indicating a sincere desire to comply, but my concern would be having the vehicle impounded if/when I get pulled over. Yes, it probably would be. I have even considered asking local law enforcement to just issue me a citation so that I might appear in court and plead for an opportunity to be given the means to comply. (i.e. move to the head of the line...) You would still lose, unless the judge is particularly sympathetic. I have also considered writing to my state representative. That's a better idea - at least it doesn't involve violating the law. And legislators usually do make some effort to help constituents when they have problems with government offices. However, if the issue is simply that the State Patrol is overloaded with work, there may not be much they can do. Is there a statute of limitations for asserting ownership that might alleviate my concerns about proceeding with the project? The requirement to have an inspection before getting a title seems to be from RCW 46.12.530 (2): &quot;The department may require additional information and a physical examination of the vehicle or of any class of vehicles, or either.&quot; So there is no exception written into statute. The implementing regulation looks to be WAC 308-56A-150. There are several criteria listed for when inspection is required, and I'm not sure which would apply to your vehicle. It may perhaps be &quot;(g) ownership in doubt (WAC 308-56A-210)&quot; which applies when you do not have the documentation described in WAC 308-56A-265. Or it may be the catchall &quot;(c) One on which the identification number needs verification as requested by the department, county auditor, or authorized agent&quot;. You'll have to research this further. There doesn't seem to be any exception based specifically on the long time period that the car has been unregistered, or the fact that no theft is known to have been reported in the past 20 years, or anything like that.
While this question may or may not have a theoretical answer, the practical answer is that you should slow down to 20 mph if there is any chance that the school zone speed limit will be in force at any time that you pass through it. If you do, you will definitely not be cited. If it is at all a close call (say within five minutes of being active), normal differences in time keeping between unsynchronized watches and a lack of any way to prove precisely when you vehicle was where and traveling at what speed, mean that the question of whether the school zone was in effect at the time you were cited will be a question of fact to be resolved based upon the credibility of the witnesses. The witnesses will probably be only the citing officer and you. As a practical matter, you are going to lose the credibility contest on this question of fact 95%+ of the time, and that credibility determination will not be an issue that could be raised on an appeal. Therefore, you should slow down before entering the school zone if it is remotely close to being time for it to be effective to leave a sufficient margin of error against traffic law enforcement officer inaccuracy, which includes any time that the school zone takes effect while you are in it. Even if you could perfectly prove that you were half way through the zone when the speed limit fell from 30 mph to 20 mph, the argument that you needed to break suddenly to comply doesn't cut it. Violating a speed limit is a strict liability offense and you have a duty as a driver to anticipate what you need to do to comply with the law at every stage of your journey. Even if your speed was legal when you entered the zone, you knew or should have known that it was on the verge of being triggered and should have slowed down in advance.
Illinois collects the fine; California treats it the same as if you had run a red light in California Both Illinois and California are parties to the Nonresident Violator Compact and the Driver Licence Compact. The former means that Chicago will forward the ticket to Illinois who will forward it to California who will forward it to you. You can contest the ticket in various ways including by mail but your prospects of success are slim. If you successfully contest, that's the end of the matter. If you don't contest or lose, you have to pay the $100 fine. The latter means that if the offence is upheld or not contested, California will apply 1 point to your licence.
The officer is saying that he believes the information to be correct, but a clerical error or typo isn't a question of saying something that you don't believe to be correct, it is a question of incorrectly putting what the officer believes to paper, often in a context where the mistake is obvious, without an intent to mislead. You would not prevail in court. Courts have broad authority to correct clerical errors even years after the fact. In civil actions in federal court this is authorized by Rule 60. But, almost all courts have this authority with respect to court process which includes traffic tickets. Since it is clearly a typo, it would not cast doubt on the integrity or accuracy of other statements in the ticket. A typo reflects fat fingers, not dishonesty.