What we have here is a failure to communicate.

May 27, 2007 8:49 AM

Anyone here have direct (or at least accurate) knowledge of how state-to-state DMV registration queries are performed?

Specifically...what information is passed back to the one requesting info? Is it direct, or does it filter through secondary systems or databases?

Some background...
My son is in school in Pennsylvania. His car is registered here in Indiana. Last week, he stopped at one of those random police check points. He presented his registration which shows the car is registered through March of '08. For whatever reason, the PA police ran his plates anyway. According to them, Indiana BMV replied that the registration was expired. They ran the query twice. Both times it came back"expired". So, they towed his car out from under him. A real WTF? moment, to be sure.

We checked with our local Indiana BMV and their system confirms the registration is valid through '08.

So, the question is...How is this error happening?

Some pertinent info about the car.
The car was originally titled in Pennsylvania. It was wrecked and issued a salvage title. It was then bought by an Indiana man, brought to Indiana, restored (and quite well!), sold and re-titled in Indiana. That was about 2 years ago now.

My theory on this is that whatever info the Indiana BMV is issuing back to the PA cops is being filtered through a PA system that still sees the car as salvage-titled in PA and, thus, invalid for use. I'm thinking that the Indiana BMV is returning more data than just a "valid" or "invalid" response. I think it's also returning the VIN, and that's what's setting-off this mess. But, of course, I don't know.

So, if anyone here can offer some definite info on these systems, or confirm/bebunk my theory, I'd truly appreciate it. We need some good ammo to present to the local magistrate when we go to get this violation overturned. And we need to, somehow, get this problem fixed...at least until September when our son finishes school and will never have to set foot in PA again. It would do us no good to get this current citation overturned only to have to go through all of this a month later due to this data snafu.

Thanks.

posted by Thorzdad to technology (6 comments total)

my theory on this is that whatever info the indiana bmv is issuing back to the pa cops is being filtered through a pa system...

maybe, but that's not the first thing i thought of...

the car was originally titled in pennsylvania. it was wrecked and issued a salvage title. it was then bought by an indiana man, brought to indiana, restored...sold...retitled...

i'm sure that's what you were told, but i don't necessarily accept it as true. i suspect there was some kind of monkey business with this buggy in the past, cleverly concealed in its checkered title history. how do you know the car was really restored, as opposed to being, say, a katrina flood victim? there's all kinds of fraud happening in private auto sales.
posted by bruce at 9:50 AM on May 27, 2007

how do you know the car was really restored, as opposed to being, say, a katrina flood victim?
You mean other than having had the original, Pennsylvania salvage title?
posted by Thorzdad at 10:22 AM on May 27, 2007 [1 favorite]

The easiest thing might be to fight the ticket and use subpoenas to get the information as retrieved by police and as retrieved by citizens. It'd illustrate any discrepancies pretty quickly.
posted by rhizome at 12:01 PM on May 27, 2007

We are definitely contesting the ticket. In fact, the cops on the scene suggested my son do exactly that. They agreed he had a valid Indiana registration, but they had to follow protocol when the "expired registration" came back. Thus the tow. Oddly, the police agreed to release his car from impound the next day. He has 10 days to appear before the magistrate to plead. Then a court date will be set.

We'll be hitting the Indiana State BMV on Tuesday to hopefully start fixing this problem. Not sure if they will be able to talk to the PA BMV or not.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:49 PM on May 27, 2007

This does sound strange.

As a police officer, I have experienced conflicting DMV info a couple of times. Each time it has been out-of-state DMV inquiries. The problem is that each state has its own set of rules, and the electronic formats used to provide law enforcement officers registration information are all completely different. It could be that the info was being read wrong (I don't think that the word 'expired' was actually displayed in the info).

My theory on this is that whatever info the Indiana BMV is issuing back to the PA cops is being filtered through a PA system that still sees the car as salvage-titled in PA and, thus, invalid for use.

Not likely.

I'm thinking that the Indiana BMV is returning more data than just a "valid" or "invalid" response. I think it's also returning the VIN, and that's what's setting-off this mess.

They are. They have to. They should be sending the VIN, the name(s) and address(es) of the person(s) the vehicle is registered to, the make, the year, the model, etc.

I'm not an expert as far as how things work in other states, but like I said, Indiana may have a format that the PA officers found difficult to interpret, and made a mistake. Especially since you wrote that the officers suggested your son contest the ticket.
posted by C17H19NO3 at 12:36 AM on May 28, 2007

In case anyone is following this issue (or happens to get here via a search), here is the way it ended up.

I got a great IM from an Indiana State Trooper who happened to be reading MeFi and saw this thread. I quote:

"When you attempt to run an Indiana license plate check through the state of indiana you must put the year that the plate expires, not the year of issue, if the police officers did not put 08 in the software specifically, it would have run the year as 07, and the 07 indiana registration would have returned as being expired.

This is unlike most every other state, most states just keep the same file updated as expire/valid, indiana creates a file each year."

As it ends up, this is exactly the snafu that caused all hell to break-out. In fact, the PA officer who has been working with us stated that the software they use to make queries doesn't even have a field to enter an expiration date.
To compound the mess, we were informed by Indiana BMV that when outside states make registration queries, they do not actually hit the IN BMV database. They actually are hitting a third-party db that may, or may not, be up-to-date.

A quick call from the PA police to the Indiana State Police confirmed a valid registration, The citation has been voided and my son does not have to appear before the magistrate.

Of course, we are out the $105 tow charge (which came out of our son's rent money) I'm not hopeful about ever being able to recoup that.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:15 AM on May 29, 2007 [1 favorite]