I know its normal to get asked for license, registration, and proof of insurance. But why ask for the registration? When I register every year, the county sends me a sticker with the plate number and expiration date to stick on the lic plate. The cops van see the plate and date right? Plus I'm sure they run the plate when they pull you over anyway. Seems to me they already know the registration status.

So why do they still ask for the registration paper?

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[–] 52 points 1 day ago (1 child)

This has all been computerized since the late 80s. They know if the car has a valid registration before they get out of the car, either by calling in your plates or by typing it into a terminal in the car. But since you are required to carry the registration in the car, not having it is something they can cite you for and make a few more bucks off of you.

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  • [–] 16 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

    The police are prosecution. They claim they don't have quotas, but with any job, there are unsaid quotas.

    I worked in IT help desk, and I was told our department wasn't opening and closing enough tickets to justify our department's existence. So I changed the sensitivity of our network monitoring system for our SDWAN and wrote a script that would automatically create a ticket and close it pretty much if a single packet was lost. I was hailed a hero as the bean counter CTO wasn't going to review the actual tickets, but he got the metrics he needed for the meeting.

    This kept a team of 14 quality support technicians employed. This stupid trick I rolled out over a weekend kept families fed for a good five years, delaying the inevitable layoff.

    And we all found better jobs and left at our own pace.

    But I digress, it isn't like the police work on commission (eh... well drugs disappear... and bribery and extortion exist...) but if you aren't writing tickets, then the prosecutor is going to bitch because they aren't handling enough tickets to justify the department of prosecution.

    So cops will look for any packet loss. Registration is said lost packet. The same for insurance, any discrepancy in your license, and if your license plate isn't perfectly mounted on your vehicle. Just fucking anything.

    You have insurance but don't have the latest card on you? They will write a ticket. You take the insurance card to the county clerk and they throw the ticket out and cancel the court date. Makes no difference to the cop, as it boosted his KPI.

    "Yay, I am halping! Pay me!" Oh, how the bureaus will burrow.

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