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There's no reason the government is still doing a halfass job with having both a digital database and using paper to register drivers, cars, and renew.
Some forms of digital solution is already available just as registration renewals and license but it is ridiculous that often paper applications are still required to do a simple car registration even by dealers that are already using a digital system to submit temporary car registrations. They still need to run to the Motor Vehicles to submit the paperwork in bulk even though they already register with the state who the new car goes to with their temporary tags.
Whenever I buy a used car I am told I am missing this paperwork or that. This should all been digital, CarFax has a history of the car's registrations already. Why can't they modernize what is already digital systems in place but still forces so much paperwork.
I'm tired of going to motor vehicles office and argue with workers there because they can't consistently or nicely tell people what they're missing or efficiently handle the work. Of course lots of jobs are at stake if they go digital but covid has forced the digitalization of application process and still requires workers to validate to prevent fraudsters.
Paper work allows for someone to fraudulently enter falsified or mistake prone information to change records. Often a lot of bad car titles such as rebuilt and salvaged titles are fraudulently washed this way because there isn't a centralized database so most people are using Carfax to get a history of the car where it is supposed to be the government's job to keep track of these info.
As long as DC lets the states handle their own licensing/registration processes it's gonna be a mess. Granted, most things GovCo touches will also be a mess, but at there won't be 50 different stand-alone bureaucracies that don't play well with other.
Vin# is unique just like SS. The government should keep track of it. Currently it is managed by state agencies and private companies then uses red tape and poor data sharing techniques so states can't properly register cars. This lady explained to me that if you buy a title from another state they have to do a title search across state lines to make sure there's no liens or judgements on it. Then they issue the title, which is not final, it can still get rejected and you end up paying the taxes and registrations for nothing. They won't refund you. And the only way to check for private citizens is Carfax.
Current system is not only frustrating but outdated and no clear accountability of vehicle ownership. The data is all there already just not being federated.
Vin# is unique just like SS. The government should keep track of it. Currently it is managed by state agencies and private companies then uses red tape and poor data sharing techniques so states can't properly register cars. This lady explained to me that if you buy a title from another state they have to do a title search across state lines to make sure there's no liens or judgements on it. Then they issue the title, which is not final, it can still get rejected and you end up paying the taxes and registrations for nothing. They won't refund you. And the only way to check for private citizens is Carfax.
Current system is not only frustrating but outdated and no clear accountability of vehicle ownership. The data is all there already just not being federated.
It's about state's rights. Different states do different things. In some states cars over 20 years old don't even NEED titles, so buying something from 2000 in one of those states and registering it in a state that DOES require titles is a mess. And then there's the fact that the current 17 digit VIN didn't arrive until 1981, with it's very regulated sequence of letters and numbers denoting important information. Before that, each manufacturer determined what they wanted in their VIN, with some being pretty detailed and some simply being some random group of digits the manufacturer wanted, and any length was ok. Which is why it's so hard to search for cars older that 1981 in any modern system.
And then there's the legality of a digital record, with many jurisdictions still requiring signatures on paper for legal documents (and that's why faxes are still considered binding legal documents in the courts, but PDFs aren't).
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