17 February 2008
On Friday my dad picked me up from school and I noticed something on the way to Rhode Island. All throughout the trip I saw dealer plates from on the cars. And they weren’t Massachusetts dealer plate. They were from Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Now dealer plates are suppose to be so dealers can switch the plate from car to car and allow people to test drive the vehicles. But that does not seem to be what car dealers are doing. They are using these plates for their own personal use.
In high school I had friends’ parents who owned a car dealership and the parents’ cars always had dealer plates on them. This is an abuse of the system that allows them to own multiple cars without ever registering them as their personal cars.
I know it is harder to tell with in-state dealer’s plates if the vehicle is actually being test driven, but out of state dealer’s plates are obviously not on a car that is being test driven.
When a person is driving a car, they usually have at least one person with them, the dealership’s sales person. So any car with dealer’s plates that has only one person in it is probably not being test driven.
Another clue that a car probably shouldn’t have dealer plates is the fact that most cars from a dealership have vehicle information on at least one window.
Dealership owners are usually relatively wealthy people and can afford to pay for the registration of their vehicles. If police pulled over dealers who were misusing their plates and took away their plates, I’d be willing to bet that dealers would rethink breaking the law.
It is about time the police start pulling over cars with dealer plates that do not have an adult passenger, do not have vehicle information on the windows or are out of state. Maybe if the police enforced the law people would obey the law.
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If just once people would CHECK before ASSUMING things? First of all, what the heck do you care if a dealer is "misusing" his dealer plates? Seriously, mind your own damn business.
Secondly, you are DEAD WRONG. Almost every state in the country allows dealers to use plates on their "personal" vehicle so long as that vehicle is owned by the dealership and will be (or is being) offered for sale. How about you CHECK THE LAW before you accuse people of breaking it hmmm?
Suppose a dealer in NY was delivering a vehicle to a customer in Rhode Island, and decided to take his wife and son for the ride and fly home? Suppose a dealer in CT took his wife with him to an auction in NJ? You have NO IDEA what they were and were not doing, or what their intentions were. (Most dealers drive a car for a few thousand miles and then sell the car anyway) Most importantly, it is NONE of your business! Save your fake outrage for Obamas flag pin ok?