What will police do with her car with a 9/2021 inspection sticker?

UPDATE: went to moms house after she didn’t show up at the diner yesterday. No surprise air conditioning was off, doors and windows shut tight and she was sweating. To be clear, she doesn’t perform any activity TO sweat. Her hair was hanging, uncurled - the likes I’ve never seen …. She wouldn’t let me in, so I really couldn’t say if there were food containers around or not. I asked her if she understood how dangerous the heat has been here and said she just didn’t feel she needed AC on. But she seemed dragged out. Told her a therapeutic fib that family has phoned her, but no answer. Asked her what was wrong, and said ‘life’.

I called the APS investigator today and surprised I got through. told her this has been moms summertime pattern since dad died. It’s so sad. Just no reason for her to live this way. Investigator said she has been calling mom this week to set up a next meeting, but no answer. After hearing from me, she said she would stop by unannounced, tomorrow.

UPDATE: APS investigator called yesterday with questions about Mom’s finances - how much SS each month, spoke about the reverse mortgage, current account balances, A pointed question-would I write her checks to pay her bills, if it came to that. Replied yes. Said she had visited Mom and is planning another visit. She did not comment on things I told her, including mom not recognizing me at the diner.

i cannot believe mom would agree to have me write her checks. She doesn’t want me in her house!

My apologies, Kat, but there was *nothing* in your original post that indicated your primary concern was possible financial exploitation of your mom. From the way you phrased your question, I thought your goal was to get mom's car removed from her out of concerns about the safety of her continuing driving, which is a common topic brought up here.

I'm sure you must see that getting mom's car taken away from her - for whatever reason - is not going to stop this alleged financial exploitation from continuing. It will just make it a tiny bit more inconvenient for this elderly man.

If you think there is financial exploitation happening to mom, your best bet is to call adult protective services and explain the situation to them. Or make that phone call to the State Troopers and talk to them about what you're seeing. But, unfortunately, with no proof from you and mom not cooperating with any investigation, my guess is you won't have much luck. If that's the case, your only option might be you will have to go to court and file for guardianship.

I hope you can find some help for mom.

Kats, I understand that you are trying to act as a caring daughter. But if mom has capacity (and she seems to) then there is little you can do.

There is no "treatment" for vascular dementia.

Just make sure that she understands that you will not be coming to rescue her when she needs more care.

Kat, I've read your responses, and I'm still not sure what you are hoping to accomplish or why. But if you're hope is to get mom's car removed from her, an expired inspection sticker in the state of PA is not going to accomplish that. In fact, I think I read in the statute that it's only a $25.00 fine for an expired inspection.

But if you don't believe me, by all means, call the State Police. If nothing else, they might have an idea of how you can get mom's car away from her if you believe it is too dangerous for her to be driving. But I doubt very much if it will be removed on the basis of this inspection sticker, regardless of how long it's been expired.

If your Moms friend is driving why do you want to take that independence away from your Mom? Whose going to drive her if the friend can't. In my state, Mom would probably get a warning to get her car inspected. It really isn't a tow away offense. How hard is it to get inspected? For me its just a matter of driving to the DMV inspection station. Some States its local gas stations that have the authority to do inspections. Just get it inspected for her.

It is surprising how different States run their DMV.

In NJ, registration is done yearly. Inspection is every 2 years, I think. If its a brand new car, its 5 years. We do not have to prove an updated inspection to get registered.

Now my brother lives in NC and he is "taxed" for his cars and its quite a lot more than I pay in registration.

In my state you can't get your registration renewed without a successful inspection. If you fail the inspection, you have to fix whatever failed and get it re-inspected (and pass) before you can complete your registration renewal. And it is annually. They mail out the registration renewal reminder about 6-8 weeks before it is due as a reminder that you need to get it inspected, you get it inspected and then do the registration (online or in person or you can mail back the registration reminder card they sent out) - then they send out the actual registration with the sticker.

So I suppose it depends on where you live how important the actual inspection really is. If you haven't had the car inspected here it means the car isn't registered either.

I would either try to get the sticker up to date, or try to stop anyone from driving it. Any time someone is in an accident of any significance, lawyers will use anything and everything they can against the owner of the car. Not that they could make a huge thing about it, but it is a sign of 'negligence'. You really want to be 'by the book', when it comes to anything involving motor vehicles.

According to the PA DOT, it's the DRIVER of the car who will be penalized for driving a car without a current inspection, not the OWNER of the car.

So nothing will happen to your mom, but her friend might be on the hook for paying a penalty.

I really can't see the State Police getting involved in with uninspected vehicle. If you call them. they will likely tell you to bring the car to be inspected.

I'm sorry if you have already explained this previously, but why don't you want your mom's neighbor to be driving her car? Are you concerned about his driving ability? Maybe if you explain to him that he will be on the hook if they get pulled over for driving with the inspection expired, it might make him more reluctant to do the driving.

Katsmihur, people forget to update their "inspection" stickers all the time. It's no big deal. If a person is stopped, usually the police would give them a warning notice.

Surprised the male neighbor hadn't notice the expired sticker since it is on the front windshield. Now is a good time to go to the inspection stations/garages as the lines are very short.

It is not a very serious crime. They would possibly tow the car and then your mom would have fees to pay to get it back. Her buddy would probably help her with the logistics and she would provide the money. Most likely they wouldn’t be stopped for just that but if they were stopped for something else, then the officer might feel he had to write that up as well. Happened to me once.
If the driver is a safe driver I doubt police would bother with it. More important things to do.

I would help her get legal since her neighbor drives her around.

I would bet she renewed the registration and just didn't put the new sticker. Otherwise her insurance would cancel.

what do you want to go to police for?

How does she have insurance for an unregistered vehicle?