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Low cost of New Hampshire insurance makes up for the cost of parking tickets in South Boston, apparently

In response to a complaint about an SUV with New Hampshire plates that is basically perma-parked on W. 7 Street, the Boston Transportation Department reports:

This vehicle has been ticketed 15 times in the past 3 1/2 months. Will continue to ticket as it is observed.

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Comments

They should boot it, and or tow it. That's resident parking. If the person lives in the neighborhood register your car in Mass and get a sticker. Then there will be no issues.

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As long as the guy is paying his tickets they can't boot it right?

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Tickets not working, try towuing it.

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Ticket every damn day. An easy hit for the ticketer. Maybe $40 a day will be expensive enough to get them to back to New Hampshire.

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This person probably don't even bother paying the tickets. Boot the car!

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You don't even need to carry insurance to register a car in New Hampshire. I lived there when I was younger, and the cost of owning a car was far less.

What I'm wondering is if this person does live on the street, why aren't they using a temporary visitor's permit for the car, pretending that this person from New Hampshire just visits them very often?

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Boston doesn't have visitor permits.

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I wonder how many other people who move here never reregister their cars because of the high cost of the city vs other markets...I saw somewhere that the # of cars is down by 15% as population has grown. just drive along any road in Boston without a resident parking sticker mandate or an off-street lot and it seems like 10-15% of the cars have out of state plates. I wonder how many of the cars with Mass plates are illegally registered in a less expensive part of the state or another state entirely.

The city should mandate that off-street lot/parking garage owners provide a list of all long term parkers and mandate resident parking stickers everywhere for on-street parking M-F. This is probably a more expensive issue than fare evasion on the T.

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I'm betting that most out of state plates that you see belong to students, whose home of record is elsewhere. Home of Record = militaryspeak for "permanent residence", which is often a parent's home for young service people.

It isn't illegal, actually. Ill-advised, possibly, as you may be denied coverage if your insurer in another state has the right to deny a claim if you aren't garaging your vehicle at your home of record. You also give up things like on-street resident parking if you do so.

People staying in the city are more likely students or professionals on temporary assignment than service people, who get the same deal. MA can make all the rules it wants about this, but, as long as your official address is out of state and you fall within a "temporary" sort of category, and the state you are from allows it, they would have an awfully difficult time enforcing it. I'd love to see them try to hassle someone who was keeping a deployed relative's car on their private property!

My neighbors are going to be temporarily moving to VA this year for eight months - but they will retain the MA plates. Similarly, a friend drove a car out from Seattle while he was working in Boston on a long temp assignment, and his family joined him, and didn't bother changing the tags - and he works for an insurance company.

The tickets only matter if MA has a reciprocity with the home state for parking tickets - so if a NH student thinks that will protect them from having to pay up to renew a regisration or license, they are probably wrong. Other states may not bother trying to collect on a Boston parking ticket.

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Then lets make the rules and start ticketing/forcing documentation on this. The burden should be on the people that are here temporarily to prove that they are here on a temporary basis.

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"It isn't illegal, actually."

Actually, it is. If you live here in Boston for more than 60 days, you're considered a resident and must get your driver's license and registration changed. Otherwise, you are a)operating without a valid license and registration b)cheating on your excise taxes c)committing insurance fraud given your insurance company bases your insurance on where the vehicle is principally garaged, NOT where you CLAIM to live.

So that license you have in your pocket from a state you lived in 4 years ago? Not so legal. Ditto for your car insured in mommy and daddy's name.

Report violators to 800-I-PAY-TAX.

If you're an out-of-state student who travels from out of state to attend classes, you have to get papers from the school certifying as such and a special sticker on the car.

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it doesn't make them an expert on Boston and they have no right telling Bostonians how to live their lives. I'm not obsessed with telling people in Medford or Quincy how to live.

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Students and military are the only ones allowed to keep their plates. Everyone else needs to switch as soon as they move. The condo parking lot next to me is like half out of state plates and they are youngish people but not students, who I am sure vote to raise taxes at every opportunity like everyone else in this state, but can't be bothered to pay their registration or excise tax to Massachusetts because they think it's a waste of money. It drives me nuts.

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"Students and military are the only ones allowed to keep their plates. Everyone else needs to switch as soon as they move. "

WRONG. I cannot speak to military, but students are NOT ALLOWED TO BE REGISTERED OUT OF STATE if they reside here. And it's not "as soon as they move" - it's 60 days.

Every university and school in the area covers this in their new student FAQs. The State Secretary's website covers this. The RMV covers this. Really, it's not hard.

You may be thinking of the exception for students who LIVE out of state - ie students who commute. There's documentation requirements and a special sticker.

If you live in the state for more than 60 days, your are a resident here, which means that you MUST get your license changed to an MA license and you MUST have your car registered here.

If you do not, you're driving without a license or registration, cheating on your taxes, and committing insurance fraud!

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My friend who was on work assignment didn't "live here". He collected his paycheck in WA from the same company that brought him in on temporary assignment because he was based in WA and paid in WA. He did not have to reregister his car for a few months that it was here because he didn't move here and that would be ridiculous.

When I was a student I had an OR tag until I graduated, and then I switched it. There was nothing illegal about that. My permanent residence was not MA until then. (I also kept my vehicle on private property - I didn't expect a Fenway/Kenmore parking sticker). My university had my OR address on file as my permanent residence, as did the military when that mattered. I filed my federal taxes with that address and filed non-resident taxes with MA on wages earned during work study. I didn't vote in MA, either.

The commonwealth does not get to have it both ways when it comes to people who are clearly not permanent residents.

I inherited my Dad's car - and I will be putting an MA plate on it before I bring it east because I permanently reside in MA now. That I have no problem with. (I technically have 60 days after arrival, but I want to go through Canada and they probably wouldn't like that at the border if the car and I didn't match).

Again, please learn what "home of record" and "permanent resident" and "nonresident" mean. That policy you refer to (but do not cite) is for people who move here permanently, not temporarily. There are distinctions in law, even if the RMV website chooses to ignore them.

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I know people who've registered their cars out of state, and have had out of state license plates on their cars because they wanted to save money, only to have the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles catch up with them several months later, thus forcing such people to register their cars here in MA and get MA license plates. Those who think that registering their cars out of state won't ever be noticed by the RMV just might want to think again!

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Report anyone that is committing fraud

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Yeah, rat out your neighbor, file a complaint on Citizens Connect. Let Boston become a town of Rat Bastards.

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Nice to see you here, John.

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There's a car with Michigan plates that's been parking on our block in Eastie for six years. How cheap in the insurance in the Wolverine State?

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Don't most insurance companies ask a bunch of questions about how the car is used and then base the rate off that? If you lie to the insurance company they can deny the claim and cancel the coverage, no?

Of course the person who would really lose would be the guy the out-of-state driver hit if the driver didn't have much in the way of assets to begin with.

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No incentive to change plates.

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If you garage your vehicle in MA you are required to have it registered in MA and have MA plates and insurance. Failure to do so is basically cheating on taxes and makes it more expensive for everyone else.

The RMV has a hotline to report it at 857-368-8099 - I thought they had a web form too but I can't seem to find it right now.

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The RMV or DOR used to have a tip hotline to report scofflaws for illegal out-of-state automobile registrations for tax evasion, 1-800-I-PAY-TAX (1-800-472-9829). I don't know why they don't have an online form to do the same.

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Like most other goverment serivices the IPAYTAXES hotline is useless. I lived next to a New Hampshire resident in Roslindale and 5 years of calls didn't even produce one ticket.

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They don't have an online form to report scofflaws, but they do have one that can be printed out and mailed.

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I remember the days when people from other neighborhoods, cities, and even other parts of the country were allowed to drive to South Boston.

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They still drive to south boston and take the T

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South Boston's resident parking program doesn't apply on weekends. It's amazing how many of the same cars with out-of-state plates magically appear every weekend and park on the street. Or they park in 2-hour limit visitor spots all week long without being ticketed. Scofflaws avoiding excise taxes and paying Mass. insurance rates.

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Report it stolen!

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