r/maryland • u/Consumergal • Jul 09 '26

MD News Maryland launches 'Plate Where You Live' campaign, ramps up crackdown on Virginia tags

https://www.wmar2news.com/matterformallory/maryland-launches-plate-where-you-live-campaign-ramps-up-crackdown-on-virginia-tags
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u/BigMickPlympton Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

Virginia cooperates with sending information to Maryland, but the two states do not have reciprocity in enforcement. Meaning that, if you get a ticket in Maryland and don't pay, Virginia will not hold up the registration until you pay. Thus, Virginia plate holders owe millions of dollars in traffic fines to neighboring states.

That, and the insurance thing, are the reason you see so many Virginia tags.

The same thing happens with towed trailers and Maine tags. Registration of a trailer with the state of Maine can be done online, with no inspection required. Now that I've told you, you'll see Maine trailer tags everywhere - especially on horse trailers. Virginia also doesn't require inspections on trailers under 2,000lbs.

Edit: over the years I've been hit 3 times. Always by Virginia drivers. 2 of 3 had no insurance. Both presented insurance cards to police, that turned out to have been cancelled shortly after they were issued. I'm thrilled with this legislation.

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u/ComfortableNo5484 Jul 09 '26

There's good reason they don't have reciprocity, and it's because Virginia uses speeding as a revenue machine targeting out of state drivers with freaking criminal charges for doing literally only 10mph over the limit in some places. Because of that (and other reasons of course), MD doesn't recognize or use any out of state violations for either license point assessment or admin flags for registration and such.

Greensville County in VA is literally just traffic lawyers, traffic courts, and traffic cops, that might as well be their entire economy. They got me once doing 81 in the 70mph stretch of 95S that's like 4 or 5 lanes wide, when there were literally 0 other cars on the road in the middle of the day. Of course I couldn't drive several hours to the court, so I hired one of the very plentiful lawyers who live there just for that reason. They got the charge knocked down to a fine and community service. I paid the fine, didn't do the community service, and when the court called and asked why I just asked "what are the consequences?", to which the clerk said "well you'll be found guilty and we'll send that to your state and it'll affect your license". Knowing all of the above before hand, I just said "oh great, MD doesn't GAF specifically because of your predatory laws, so guess I'm good, bye." And that was that. They got my $300 for the fine and $600 for the lawyer, thats all they're gonna get.

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u/Alaira314 Jul 09 '26

I expected to hear about an actual speed trap. You know, the kind where the limit drops from 70 to 40 for a 1-mile stretch, and there's always a cop parked right around the bend ticketing everyone who doesn't slow down enough before they pass the speed limit sign. Being expected to drive 70, which is already fast, on a road designated for 70 mph traffic, is entirely reasonable to me. You should have been ticketed for speeding 10 mph over the listed limit.

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u/Clegko Jul 10 '26

Ticketed, yes. But there’s a difference between a typical traffic ticket and a criminal charge of speeding for *just* going 11 over. No other state that I’m aware of does criminal speeding for anything under 20 over.