California Asks Residents To Rat Out Neighbors With Out-Of-State Car Registrations

When you move to California from another state, the law only provides you a few weeks to register your car in California. But between the dread of dealing with bureaucrats and the state’s high registration fees, some drivers are perfectly content with just keeping those out-of-state tags on their vehicles. But authorities in California are asking residents — and have made it very easy — to rat on their neighbors for no updating their registrations.

The California Highway Patrol, an organization known around the world thanks to Erik Estrada’s fine dramatic work, has launched a program called Californians Help Eliminate All The Evasive Registration Scofflaws, which is a loooong way to go just to justify calling the program CHEATERS.

CHEATERS has actually been around for a bit, but the cash-strapped state is making a renewed push to remind residents that they have an easy way to peg a $400 fine on that jerk down the block who not only doesn’t mow his lawn, but has also been driving a Volvo with Oregon plates for two years now.

All they have to do is go to this website and provide pertinent info about the offending vehicle and where it was spotted… And then just sit back and wait for the CHiPs to roll up on that guy with his overgrown lawn and beat-up, out-of-state, hunk of metal.

“Most of the people in California, the vast, vast majority of them, are good upstanding people. They contribute and pay their registration, and they expect the same from the other people on the roadway,” a Highway Patrol officer tells CBS San Francisco, before putting on his mirrored glasses and riding off to some badass theme music.

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