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Eliminating Vehicle Registration Late Fees?

Updated: Thursday, March 21 2013, 07:44 PM EDT
COLUMBUS -- Ohio House Bill 75 would eliminate the twenty dollar late fee charged to people who fail to renew their vehicle registration within seven days of its expiration.

State Representative Ron Hood introduced the bill. He says pulling someone over for expired tags is one thing, "But to just assume that anyone who hasn't registered their vehicle by a certain deadline is out their driving their vehicles on the streets—that’s an unfair assumption. Why should someone be dinged with a twenty dollar fee when he wasn't actually driving the vehicle?" Hood says another problem is the state counts on the money raised by the fees to put toward the highway patrol budget. He says, "By nature a fee should be something that's done for a punitive reason not a budgetary reason."

The late registration fee is also being addressed in the pending transportation budget. There is a proposal to lessen the fine to ten dollars and extend the grace period to thirty days.

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Reporter: Mike Kallmeyer
Web Producer: Kellie HannaEliminating Vehicle Registration Late Fees?