Students who bring cars with out-of-state license plates to Tufts may be in for a fine if they fail to register their cars with local police departments in accordance with a state law.
Students must register even if they park their cars in private driveways, either through the Tufts University Police Department (TUPD) or Medford or Somerville Police Departments.
According to Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles Director of Titles Charlie LaRocca, this law allows students to bring their cars to Massachusetts without having to transfer registration, pay excise tax, or insure their cars here while allowing law enforcement to locate the owner of the car.
"The reason why that law was put into place is because [it] allows you to bring a vehicle into the state without registering it here," LaRocca said. "If it's registered to somebody in Connecticut, but the vehicle was in custody of the driver, it would allow law enforcement to get in contact with the owner of the car."
Though students with cars not registered in Mass. have always been required to report their vehicles to local police departments, a new provision levies a $50 fine on students who do not display decals on the center upper portion of their windshield.
"This law has been on the books for quite awhile - they've changed some aspects of reporting," LaRocca said. University Public Safety Supervisor Brett Sylvia said that the University is in compliance with the law and provides applications for decals to students at the Public Safety office in Dowling Hall.
"[The] Department of Public Safety does maintain and distribute hundreds of these stickers each year," Sylvia said.
Sylvia added that the University does not force students to obtain these stickers, but makes an effort to publicize the law.
"We do recommend to every student purchasing a decal for an out-of-state vehicle that they also complete the application for the Non-Resident Student sticker," he said. "However, the responsibility to do so rests with the individual student."
According to Sylvia, enforcement of fines is relatively lax, although students who have been stopped for traffic violations may be asked how long their car has been in the state.
"I personally have not heard of any students being cited for residing in the state for extended periods of time without transferring their vehicle registration," Sylvia said. "However, I have heard of police officers (state and local) questioning individuals about the length of time the car has been in Massachusetts."
Although Public Safety makes the decals available to students, a quick search through parking lots found that many cars were not in compliance. In the lot behind Aidekman Arts Center, three cars had stickers while one did not. In the lot by Latin Way Apartments, six cars had stickers while three did not.
State law normally requires non-residents, who illegally keep their vehicle within the state for more than 30 days, to pay an excise tax valued at $25 per every $1,000 of a vehicle's estimated value. Insurance costs for city-dwellers also tend to be higher than for residents of the suburbs, and insurance premiums tend to be higher in Massachusetts than in other states.
This law allows for students to save money by not having to register their car within the state.
