Fair warning: The following story lauds minor-league lawlessness.
A Post-Dispatch reader on Monday sent an email to several reporters and an editor that tapped into the nagging unpleasantness more than a few motorists feel upon seeing expired temporary tag after expired temporary tag flutter free and flagrant.
The fed-up citizen’s bulletin to this bureau told of how, after finally having had enough, he went up to one of the tardy autos in a south ºüÀêÊÓƵ parking lot and tore off the temp tag — which expired in January 2021, a solid two-and-a-half years ago.
The fact that his actions may constitute some sort of misdemeanor did not dampen his enthusiasm. He then took a photo of the pilfered past-due permit and sent it to the newspaper, with a decidedly unapologetic message:
“I’m an old man but got a big thrill like a kid opening Christmas presents when I ripped that tag off the car,†he said. “I’ve wanted to do it for a long time but never had the chance.â€
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The email went on to say, “The tags had been on the car so long they are faded and rust is around the screw holes.â€
Reached Tuesday by telephone, the man wasted no time in providing a bit of a biography.
“Yeah, you can call me ‘cantankerous old fart’ from south ºüÀêÊÓƵ,†he said, then noted that the situation has irked him for several years.
“You know that the cops see these expired tags. How can they not?†said “COF,†who is in his 70s and lives in south ºüÀêÊÓƵ.
COF said he’d hoped that when the city hired new police Chief Robert Tracy in January, enforcement would step up. “But I haven’t seen it and I haven’t heard him say anything about it.â€
“I mean, it’s not like it would take a lot of police work on their part. All they’d have to do is go to any parking lot anywhere in the city and just sit there,†he said.
For their part, the ºüÀêÊÓƵ police department said it does enforce vehicle registration laws, including writing tickets for expired tags.
A police spokesperson explained, however, that an expired temporary tag is “not seized or otherwise removed from a vehicle.â€
“It is possible for a motorist to receive multiple citations for registration violations yet continue to avoid properly registering their vehicle and continue to display the expired temporary registration,†the spokesman said.
And to be sure, a shortage of police officers — the department says its 270 officers short of its authorized strength — usually has its officers tied up with higher-priority calls.
“Our policy dictates that officers respond directly to most dispatched assignments and does not give them the discretion to deviate from, or delay their response to, those directed assignments,†the department said.
In other words: too few cops, too little time.
While it doesn’t speak directly to expired temporary tags, anyone driving city streets will not be surprised that traffic stops have dropped dramatically in recent years.
A Post-Dispatch story in March gave the following figures, based on information from the Missouri Attorney General’s Office:
In 2021, ºüÀêÊÓƵ police made 45,154 traffic stops, a little more than half the 85,622 of stops they conducted in 2009.
In 2021, ºüÀêÊÓƵ police issued just fewer than 18,000 tickets, about half of the 34,833 they issued in 2009.
But when it comes to expired temp tags, it’s not just COF who bristles about it.
On Tuesday, a longtime Post-Dispatch reporter — who had no idea this story was in the works — sent this bureau a photo of a tag that was two months more expired than the one from COF.
The photo showed a sedan near Morganford and Osceola avenues with a temp tag that had expired in November 2020.
When Charlie Brennan had his daily show on KMOX Radio, he would post expired-tag photos on social media and then talk about it on the air.
He chuckled when I mentioned the expiration dates of the aforementioned vehicles. “That’s not the record. We had some four years or more.â€
Brennan said some listeners defended the drivers.
“There were some who told me to mind my own business, or pointed out that maybe the driver didn’t have the money to pay the vehicle taxes,†he said. “But generally speaking it got a lot of likes and retweets.â€
Brennan’s favorite story on the matter is when he was traveling on 14th Street in downtown ºüÀêÊÓƵ, right next to a police car that was directly behind a car with expired temp tags.
“And the cops didn’t do anything,†he said.
The show segment did have an effect on Brennan. “Every time I go to renew my plates, I wonder to myself — why am I even bothering with this?â€
One could probably guess that COF shares that feeling. He said if he never again had to drive outside of the city limits, he’d consider never renewing his plates.
“But,†he said, “they still write tickets in other places.â€