I know what you might be thinking after you read the title of this blog post. You can only have suspended plates if you did something wrong, right? NOPE. Today I wanted to share about how we learned that our plates were suspended on one of our vehicles because of an insurance issue (even though we’ve never had a lapse in insurance). It’s happened to other Illinois residents as well so read on to learn more, including how you can make sure this doesn’t happen to you!
Here’s our story…
Sinisa went to a local currency exchange to renew the plates for the vehicle he drives and was told that the plates were suspended and he had to go to the DMV. He went to our local DMV office where they told him that our plates were suspended because we hadn’t proved that we had insurance on a random day in 2017. Apparently they had sent a letter to our old address (where our car was registered to) requesting proof of insurance for a single day in October of 2017. So since we did not receive the reporting form, we did not send it in, and the plates on our vehicle were suspended.
There’s no way for us to know how long we had suspended plates and if one of us would have gotten pulled over for unknowingly driving with a suspended vehicle registration there could have been penalties. According to the Driver’s Defense Team: “If the state can prove that you were operating a vehicle with invalid registration, the penalties can be quite severe. In most cases, it is treated as a Class A misdemeanor, the most serious offense in Illinois before a felony. This means the judge can impose a sentence of up to one year in jail or a fine of up to $2,500, or both.” Would this happen if you can prove you had insurance and didn’t deserve to have your registration suspended? I don’t know.
Luckily, we discovered this issue on our own and not after getting pulled over or our story may have been very different! In our case, our local DMV office told us we could pay a fine of $100 to “make it go away” or we could drive to another DMV (that offers more services) and show proof of insurance from last October to get our license plate registration unsuspended. Thankfully, we have two vehicles and Sinisa had vacation time to deal with this so we didn’t have to pay an additional $100.
So how can you make sure this doesn’t happen to you?
First, just to be safe, I’d suggest checking your vehicle’s registration on the Illinois Secretary of State’s website just to make sure it’s not suspended. (You can do so here.)
Next, if you have moved since purchasing your vehicle, make sure the address on your vehicle registration is up to date. We mistakenly believed that our registration address was updated automatically when we changed the address on our license but it was not. You have to do this separately.
Lastly, if you get a form requesting proof of insurance send it in immediately so you don’t misplace it or forget about it. According to the IL DMV website: “Enforcement of the mandatory insurance law is accomplished through a random questionnaire sampling process and the issuance of traffic tickets. If the computer randomly selects your vehicle, you will receive a questionnaire asking for the name of your insurance company and policy number. Your answers will be verified with the company you name. If you do not have insurance or fail to return the questionnaire with the requested information, your license plates will be suspended.”
I hope this information is helpful and keeps you from ending up in a similar situation. Please share this post with anyone you know who lives in Illinois!Â
Wow, I had no idea this could happen! Thank you for the information.
This happened to my brother-in-law. Illinois is in such a mess, I have no doubt they knew that not only would they save money on mailing fees, they’d make extra on fines when people noticed they were expired!
I would have never thought about expired license plates. I wonder if Kansas has something like that.
You just reminded me that I so need to renew my registration. Our state just keeps hiking up that fee…hate it!
Wow! What a stressful situation! I’ve never heard of such a thing.
It’s a good thing you found this out on your own. I don’t know if this happens here or not but we will make sure to update our address on our registration when we move.
This happened to me on a motorcycle. The day was 12-30-21. Insurance in the month of december for a motorcycle! Notice was mailed to old address and I didn’t recieve. My first ride of the year resulted in me being pulled over and arrested! Bike was towed and cost me 150 bucks to get it out. I found out I didn’t fill out a form online that my motorcycle was stored in December in illinois. Lost my job.
Macomb, Illinois aka Hell aka Little Portland just impounded my friends car. Costs 650$ to get it out. Another $125 to get it towed and he had proof of insurance. This law is illegal. Entrapment.
Yes!! Is there anything we could do with a lawyer to recover the money? It’s not ok with what’s happening
Illinois…. Lovely Illinois… time to move away. I was pulled over for speeding on a yellow light and ended up noticing my DL was suspended. At 3am, tired of working a 12hr shift … the police officers had me out the car like a criminal and towed my car away. I had ZERO clue my DL was suspended. I’m a hard working citizen and have always paid my dues and never had issues with my driving records before. My car was impounded and had to pay $500 fee to the police department and $380 to the towing place to release my humble $2,000 Jetta…. Let’s not forget the suspension fee of another $100 to the DMV. All of this after paying $40k in taxes this past year. I hope I can alert many others out there! From now on, we should double check the status of our registrations and driver license online. It can save you close to $1,000 dollars. Cheers!
My godmother is going through hell because of this, except, they have a third party verification company randomly check at least 2 times annually that Illinois residents’ registered vehicles carry the mandatory liability insurance. She had to renew her policy back in October, 2034 and it caused her insurance to show that she lapsed a total of 3 DAYS. She didn’t receive notice because she’s moved and they will not accept any of her documents for address verification at the Secretary of State to get an update license. And even though she’s told Williamson County police, Franklin County police, the Circuit Clerk in Williamson county, the states attorneys office in Williamson County, and the judge the presided over her cases (she was pulled over, ticketed for driving with suspended registration, and they suspended her driver’s license too, so she was also ticketed for that, as well as- get this- OPERATING AN UNINSURED VEHICLE-and she has had insurance this entire time), they arrested her and took her to the Williamson County jail for processing and then released, and her vehicle was towed and impounded and cost her $450 to get it back) they still continue to send all of het notices to the wrong address. She has now paid $450 for getting her truck out of impound+ the $100 reinstatement fee for the suspension on her registration/tags+$150 reinstatement fee for reinstatement of her driver’s license+ $900 in fines for this crap. And what is even more messed up is, today, she went to our local Secretary of State to pay to renew her tags and they told her they are unable to renew them because HER REGISTRATION IS SUSPENDED AGAIN! They couldn’t even tell her why, because they themselves could not figure out why! This state needs some serious overhauls of certain government entities and systems and the Illinois Secretary of State is one of them. She has had valid insurance this entire time so there’s no valid reason for this mess. If it’s over unpaid fines, That’s BS. I thought that the governor had passed a law stating that you could no longer penalize residents for unpaid fines by suspending or preventing reinstatement of their drivers license. But maybe registration isn’t covered in that law. Either way, it’s BS. So be aware that if you fail to show up for court on a ticket like this, that they will enter what’s known as an Ex-Parte’ judgement against you (find you guilty by default because they assume your failure to appear is an admission if guilt), they DOUBLE the amount of the fines that you would’ve otherwise been ordered to pay, and then they send it to a collections agency and tack on another $105 fee to your fines. They then notify the Secretary of State and, apparently, suspend your registration/license.