Jerni

New York plates are essentially owner assigned. When we bought our new car earlier this year they just immediately transferred them to the new vehicle, so no driving around without a plate for a while like California. New York are also very strict about the plates being returned if you leave state or sell a car and don't replace it.

When we moved here from California we were surprised to get the plates from the DMV at the time we registered our cars. The nice thing is the plates are sequential one ending in 06 and the other 07.

Pulaski

I had understood that most states assign the tags to the owner, that is certainly the case in NC and VA, however for some reason many people in NC seem to prefer to get new tags when they buy a new vehicle, so it is very common to see people driving around on temporary cardboard tags.

I think we were supposed to return our VA tags when we moved to NC, but the only incentive to do so was to get back a part of the tax, which was going to be just a few dollars, so I kept them. Two of the VA tags have the exact same sequence of characters as we have now on our vehicles NC tags.

scrubbedexpat091

Our plates are also our car insurance as we have government provides the car insurance via a government owned corporation, so if you don't return the plates they won't cancel the insurance right away and keep on charging you each month for it. It's a huge huge pain to cancel the insurance without turning the plates in.

I wasn't able to turn the plates in once and they refused to cancel the insurance for 3 months, so ended up having to pay 700 dollars for nothing since I didn't have a car those 3 months.

I am not sure how the other provinces do it, this is just for BC.

Pulaski

Good grief! The more I learn about Canada, the more I think Americans are right, you really are a bunch of communists up there!

markonline1

I took em off because the Geico claims adjuster insisted they stay on the car. To be honest I knew no different. If I ever get them back and I'm unfortunate enough to be in the same position, in the words of a famous NRA member, they will have to be prized out of my, er, hands.

scrubbedexpat091

Depends what province your in, some are liberal with car insurance and permit private companies to provide, others like BC (Saskatchewan as well, not sure which others, Ontario and Alberta have private insurance.) have crown corporations to provide insurance and it's mandatory to buy basic insurance from them, you can buy the optional stuff from private companies if you desire.

Upside is BC rates are lower then privatized Ontario on average, but Alberta averages to be cheaper, so if BC went private who knows which direction it would go.

I would not compare ICBC, Liquor Control whatever their name is, and BC Hydro as typical government agencies as they are all expected to make a profit and pay the government dividends and they do, so basically no different as a company except the shareholder is the government.

Crown corps are expected to pay nearly 3 billion to the provincial government in the next fiscal year, if those corporations did not exist, taxes would have to go up, or other services cut.

Pros and cons like anything to having them. Despite no competition for electricity for example, we have some of the lowest rates in North America, and pay less then places with an open market and competition.

S Folinsky

GEICO gives out patently wrong information which causes the start of the problems and DMV had problems in fixing it.

BTW, sequential plates in CA go with the car.

Michael

When I lived in Switzerland, the insurance companies were required to notify the police when someone's car insurance lapsed and the police would come around with a screw driver and remove the license plates.

That may sound like Swiss efficiency but one day I put a tree branch in the garbage can (only thing in the garbage can) that was about 2" longer than the garbage can and was ticketed for putting out garbage without the lid fully closed.

amideislas

Same in Germany, Austria. The German Swiss tend to be even more rigid than Germans. Austrians a bit less so.

Did you ever experience what happens if your rubbish bins are in the wrong order? (IIRC; 1. Glass, 2. Paper, 3. Bio) or if they ever found plastic in the glass bin? How about washing your car on a Sunday or having friends on your terrace after 22:00? All serious offences which can result in serious fines.

But allowing something to expire is, well, all but criminally negligent.

Michael

I lived in Geneva in the late 1960s and early 1970s so there wasn't recycling. They gave residents two very small garbage cans (smaller than the size that would be put under the sink) and that was picked up twice a week. If you had too much garbage, you'd have to store your garage filling the cans at later dates. Prior to leaving Geneva, we had a party at the house and my ex and I waited for the garbage truck to arrive and ran out of the house with bags of garbage but when we tried to put it in the hole, the garbage man slide the lid shut not allowing us to dispose of the garbage. Even though we said we were leaving shortly and needed to get rid of the garbage, he refused. We were told that what we should have been doing was separate the paper from the garbage and burn the paper outside.

In Austria, we had a friend that was changing the diaper of her child and the child rolled off the counter on to the floor and bruised his head. She was so terrified to take the child to the doctor since she was convinced that she would be put in jail for child abuse so she never took the child to see the doctor. Fortunately the child was ok after a few days.

scrubbedexpat091

sounds like a nightmare of a place to live.

Fortunately they are not that bad with trash here...lol

For apartments its just a dumpster and no limit, they want you to keep recyclables separate and placed into the recycling bin, but based on how empty it is, doesn't seem like many do it.

For single family homes recycling is mandatory, the city provides 2 cans, one for trash which is picked up twice a month. But the lid has to shut to prevent animals from making a mess, and unless its trash day have to keep it chained shut and out of reach of bears.

Michael

By no means was it a nightmare but just a little inconvenient. However the Swiss were definitely efficient in enforcing rules. One night a friend and I were having a late dinner on the top of the Jura mountains and when we left, there was a parking ticket on her car which said "report to the police station immediately". It was a very small village with only a couple of restaurants, a church, and a police station so we walked to the police station and the lights were out (it was midnight). We decided that ringing the doorbell for a stupid parking ticket would be really dumb so we went to my chalet for the night. The next day at 8 am, we went to the police station and the policeman said "you we supposed to come her last night" and we tried to explain why we didn't but he was annoyed that we didn't ring the bell. Then he took a copy of a fax and had my friend verify all her personal information on the fax and after that, we paid the fine and left.

Bob

In MA, they stay with you if you get a new car and register it within I think 5 days. Other wise, the plates are dead and you have to get new plates on your new car and if there's any registration/excise tax still on them, you need to hand the plates in to get a receipt to get a pro-rated refund.

I can't remember about Maine, but think it is similar.

TimFountain

I'm not sure about the DMV being the most inept. I think that honor goes to the USPS, who are truly useless and a federal agency so manage to screw up across the entire US, wheres DMV's just screw up with regularity at the individual state level....

Michael

And how is the postal system when you send something across the EU. I've never had any problems with USPS and in fact I normally find USPS better than the private carriers. I usually hope that a package will be shipped by USPS.

UPS has Sure Post and FedEx has Smart Post. The only thing that I am sure of and smart enough to know is that packages sit in their sorting facilities for long periods of time (usually for many days) and when they finally give it to USPS for delivery, it is always delivered that day.