Census estimates show Providence population grew in 2016

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by MMS02760

It feels as if you are in a totally different city just two blocks from the inner harbor. The area deteriorates very quickly as soon as you start to get away from the harbor. Harborplace, the stadiums, Federal Hill, and Fells Point are great. Everywhere else in Baltimore not so good. Was not surprised to see the rioting there a few years ago in 2015 based on what I saw when I ventured out a bit from the tourist areas.

Never have I been anywhere else inside or outside the USA where I could honestly say "this city is inhabited by a bunch of animals", and with a general culture of total lawlessness.


To give you an idea I have been to Detroit, Memphis, and Central America.

[boulevardofdef]

Originally Posted by MMS02760

It feels as if you are in a totally different city just two blocks from the inner harbor. The area deteriorates very quickly as soon as you start to get away from the harbor. Harborplace, the stadiums, Federal Hill, and Fells Point are great. Everywhere else in Baltimore not so good. Was not surprised to see the rioting there a few years ago in 2015 based on what I saw when I ventured out a bit from the tourist areas.

I had Baltimore pegged as a potential relocation destination once. It's exactly the kind of city I used to target -- dense, old, easy access to my hometown of New York, attracts tourism, good value compared to a nearby city, easy access to that city for day trips. Then I drove through it.

[ormari]

Originally Posted by boulevardofdef

Hey, can someone explain to me why anyone cares that people put registration stickers all over their license plates? I don't get it.

Hey boulevard. I think you should care about it, and here's why:

Multiple stickers on a license plate can be used as a ploy to deceive police in an effort to avoid paying for registration/insurance/taxes. The sticker color is a visual indicator to the police as to whether the registration if valid, without them having to manually run the plates through their computer system. While the color of the sticker is supposed to indicate the expiration year of the registration, there are only so many colors, and the colors get repurposed, i.e. white was used for a 2010 expiration, but also for 2017.

If you have a plate with multiple stickers, it doesn't take long before it looks like you might have a valid registration sticker on there somewhere. At any given time, three colors represent valid registrations: current year expiration, next year expiration, and expiration the year after that. Passenger car registrations are valid for two years.

During the commute this morning, I saw a pickup truck with a white sticker (March 2017) and a green sticker (Feb 2019). Here's a fun fact, because I know you love fun facts: unlike cars, pickup truck registrations expire yearly, and always in March. So the February 2019 sticker on that pickup truck indicates that the sticker came from a passenger car, probably the front plate of a passenger car, and that pickup truck was likely driving around unregistered and uninsured. And since registration info is fed to the city tax assessor, it was probably also untaxed.

Those who do this can attempt to avoid paying their fair share of registration fees, insurance, and taxes. That drives up the cost for the rest of us. The stickers are one way to play the odds, but as is well known, many people figure out a way to register their vehicle in Florida to achieve a similar effect.

The many, many, many vehicles with multiple registration stickers also betrays a lackadaisical attitude of the police when it comes to enforcement of laws. Rhode Island makes it tough on the police because they put the expiration month in small type on the yearly sticker rather than on the plate or on a separate sticker. But still, the police seem to have given up on trying to make sure the cars on the road are registered and insured.

One also wonders how a car with multiple registration stickers passes state inspection. Multiple stickers should be an automatic failure.

If the city of Providence and state were serious about addressing uninsured motorists and unregistered vehicles, and the high insurance premiums which come about, in part, from uninsured drivers, they would make a push to pull over vehicles with multiple registration stickers and cite them and/or fail the vehicle during state inspection.

The prevalance of cars with mulitiple stickers is a signal about how to game the system, and how likely you are to get caught if you do so.

[boulevardofdef]

Originally Posted by ormari

Multiple stickers on a license plate can be used as a ploy to deceive police in an effort to avoid paying for registration/insurance/taxes.

Well, you make some valid points here. It all seems pretty easily solvable, though, just by passing a law banning multiple registration stickers and ticketing violators. If this is a known issue, it really shouldn't be that tough.

I do wonder how many offenders are doing it as a scam, and how many are doing it because why not.

Originally Posted by ormari

Here's a fun fact, because I know you love fun facts: unlike cars, pickup truck registrations expire yearly, and always in March.

That is indeed a very fun fact that I'm already planning to work into upcoming conversations, and thanks for that. I didn't know my love of fun facts was so transparent from a bunch of message-board posts.

[mvpsharky]

Originally Posted by ormari

Hey boulevard. I think you should care about it, and here's why:

Multiple stickers on a license plate can be used as a ploy to deceive police in an effort to avoid paying for registration/insurance/taxes. The sticker color is a visual indicator to the police as to whether the registration if valid, without them having to manually run the plates through their computer system. While the color of the sticker is supposed to indicate the expiration year of the registration, there are only so many colors, and the colors get repurposed, i.e. white was used for a 2010 expiration, but also for 2017.

If you have a plate with multiple stickers, it doesn't take long before it looks like you might have a valid registration sticker on there somewhere. At any given time, three colors represent valid registrations: current year expiration, next year expiration, and expiration the year after that. Passenger car registrations are valid for two years.

During the commute this morning, I saw a pickup truck with a white sticker (March 2017) and a green sticker (Feb 2019). Here's a fun fact, because I know you love fun facts: unlike cars, pickup truck registrations expire yearly, and always in March. So the February 2019 sticker on that pickup truck indicates that the sticker came from a passenger car, probably the front plate of a passenger car, and that pickup truck was likely driving around unregistered and uninsured. And since registration info is fed to the city tax assessor, it was probably also untaxed.

Those who do this can attempt to avoid paying their fair share of registration fees, insurance, and taxes. That drives up the cost for the rest of us. The stickers are one way to play the odds, but as is well known, many people figure out a way to register their vehicle in Florida to achieve a similar effect.

The many, many, many vehicles with multiple registration stickers also betrays a lackadaisical attitude of the police when it comes to enforcement of laws. Rhode Island makes it tough on the police because they put the expiration month in small type on the yearly sticker rather than on the plate or on a separate sticker. But still, the police seem to have given up on trying to make sure the cars on the road are registered and insured.

One also wonders how a car with multiple registration stickers passes state inspection. Multiple stickers should be an automatic failure.

If the city of Providence and state were serious about addressing uninsured motorists and unregistered vehicles, and the high insurance premiums which come about, in part, from uninsured drivers, they would make a push to pull over vehicles with multiple registration stickers and cite them and/or fail the vehicle during state inspection.

The prevalance of cars with mulitiple stickers is a signal about how to game the system, and how likely you are to get caught if you do so.

I always figured that's why they do it .. to try to scam the registration .. I thought "they can't be THAT stupid" lol maybe some are though

[ormari]

Originally Posted by boulevardofdef

Well, you make some valid points here. It all seems pretty easily solvable, though, just by passing a law banning multiple registration stickers and ticketing violators. If this is a known issue, it really shouldn't be that tough.

Of course implementing a better gameplan to deal with scammers is straightforward; theory and practice are well established, elsewhere at least. But can our second-string elected officials read the playbook?

Actually, while our system isn't optimal, the law already states that the sticker is to be placed in the lower right corner of the plate. Lack of enforcement is apparently a big part of the problem. Lack of enforcement of auto related laws extends beyond enforcement of registration stickers, to correcting the poor driving skills Rhode Islanders are known to exhibit.

Originally Posted by boulevardofdef

I do wonder how many offenders are doing it as a scam, and how many are doing it because why not.

Good question. Some small portion is probably due to illiteracy as Planetoid implies. There are instructions that come with the sticker...

Originally Posted by boulevardofdef

That is indeed a very fun fact that I'm already planning to work into upcoming conversations, and thanks for that.

Won't you be the life of the party?

[mp775]

If I had to guess why people put multiple stickers all over their plates, I'd say it's natives showing off how long they have been in Rhode Island. I see it a lot less now than in the past. With the newer six-digit plates, it's also impossible to do without obscuring part of the number.