So my mother is on her way home from church, sitting at a light, and a cop is behind her.  He runs her plate for whatever reason and the registration doesn't match up to her vehicle.  Lights go on and pulls her over.  My mom has her registration, up to date tags on plate, insurance, all saying that her car is registered to her.  But some dumb f*ck at the secretary of state screwed up and registered her plate to someone 200 miles away.  So by law they issue her a ticket, pull her plate off, and impound the car (took four cops to do this).  The cops know she did no wrong and it is just a mix up at the secretary of state, but they did it anyway.  They are doing their jobs, I can understand that.  Ironic thing is my dad was driving the car the other day(3 weeks ago) and got pulled over, and none of this came up.  But what pisses me off is that my mom is without her vehicle, has a ticket to go fight, impound fees to pay, and all the bull shit to get her plate back (she has had the same personalized plate for 20+ years and would like to keep it).  I know the ticket will get thrown out of court, but how would one go about getting out of the impound fee's and getting her plate back? Thanks for your help and advice.

Kevin.

I've seen this happen three different times to someone I know.  Twice, it resulted in the car getting impounded, like happened to your mother.  Whatever you do, get the car out of impound as fast as possible.  My sister-in-law left her car in impound until she got everything straightened-out.  The charges per day were ridiculous.  It cost almost as much for the tow and two weeks in the lot as her car was worth.  So, find-out how much the daily fees are and decide if you have to get the car out immediately.  You'll have to get it towed to private property since it doesn't have plates, and that will cost money but an honest tow is much cheaper than a dishonest lot fee.

Also, don't be so sure you can get out of the ticket.  You are responsible for making sure the paperwork is correct at the DMV.  I got nailed by this since I noticed that my registration had an incorrect VIN # for my van.  I gave-up trying to get it corrected after getting jerked-around by the DMV after about 10 visits.  Well, a cop, who was looking for a stolen white van, stopped me and noticed the VIN number on my registration wasn't nearly long enough.  He didn't ticket me, and was nice enough to go with me to the DMV twice to try to get it fixed before giving-up in disgust.  I still don't have that straight even after 20 years.  As of last August, the van isn't driveable, so it's no longer a problem.  It's correct on the title, so I don't know if it's going to be a problem when I sell it.z

get the car out of impound ...ASAP

the fees and tow for 1 day ive seen is OVER $100

the impound workers WILL STEAL EVERYTHING IN THE CAR.

Zoom, take the van to a shoot to be shot. [:)]

Boy, is this a great country or what?  

Governmental Immunity from Prosecution is the twentieth century's most useful invention.

Damned if I can. "Dominate and control". Screw "protect and serve".

What I do not understand is how, when its their mistake, that you have to pay the towing and impound fees, and even the court fees.

Governments are messed up.