Keeping Criminals Out of Collector Cars

A new Washington state law makes it riskier for criminals to travel in collector cars. I own a collector car with a “lifetime” collector car license plate, meaning there are no annual renewal fees. As far as I know there aren’t any “wants and warrants” out against the car or me. However, until the state legislature acted earlier this year, there was no way for a police officer to tell that or even if I’m the car’s legal owner if the car was pulled over for a traffic stop.

I learned about the new law today when I was skimming 35th district state representative Fred Finn’s web site looking for his email address. I wonder how many collector car owners or criminals know about it. If you made a Venn diagram of collector car owners and criminals, I also wonder how big the intersection of the two populations would be. Finally I wonder why the registration program for collector cars, which has been around for at least 20 years, has escaped notice until now.

Representative Finn sponsored House Bill 1933, which directs the Department of Licensing to provide law enforcement with a method to access collector vehicle data. The bill also makes the use of fake collector plates a misdemeanor. Support for the bill in the legislature was almost unanimous. It went into effect on August 1, 2011.

On his web site, Representative Finn talked about officer safety and the importance of discouraging the use of fake collector plates. I’m scratching my head over the latter point. The use of a restored vintage plate in lieu of a collector plate is legal as long as the registration paperwork and plate match. I’m not sure what a fake plate is. And if the plate number and registration match, who cares?

According to the state patrol officer who brought the licensing loophole to Representative Finn’s attention, there are more than 110,000 collector cars registered in Washington.

With that many cars inevitably some of them are being used in criminal activities. Not all collector cars are old classics, cruisers from the 1950’s, and muscle cars from the 1960’s and ‘70’s. To qualify as a collector car, the vehicle only needs to be 30 years old. That means cars from the early 1980’s (remember them?) are now considered antiques. It doesn’t mean their owners have registered them as collector vehicles and are then going out to rob a convenience store. But I suppose they could.

Not any more, or at least not any more with impunity. Once the DOL makes collector vehicle data available, police officers will be able to run a “wants and warrants” search on a collector car just like any other car. So all those criminals driving beater Hondas and pristine Packards with collector plates better watch out. I know I’m going to be more careful when I’m driving my old Chevy.