"But officer, what did I do?" The police officer explained to my friend that there was no moving violation. His registration had been canceled. Now that cruisers have computers on board, it seems that ‘running a plate’ at random has become common practice.

My pal had overlooked the date on his car’s inspection sticker and was past due for a trip to his local garage. In the not too distant past, the officer would have handed him a warning form, but that didn’t happen on King Street last Saturday. Now that computers so tightly link everything, the Registry had automatically lifted my friend’s registration after the inspection date had been missed. What’s worse, their policy is to do that without any sort of notice to the owner of the car. And so the officer impounded my friend’s car, removed the plates and ordered up a tow truck.

It was $100 for the impound tow, and $25 storage charges each day thereafter. On Monday, there was the ‘new’ registration for $50, and a further $30 charge for the plates that the police officer had removed, which are considered by the Registry as lost.

When the Registry cancels the registration, he was told, the insurance company automatically cancels the insurance – again, without any notice to the insured. So the Registry clerk sent my friend off to the insurance agent, where he learned that he needed to pay $1,000 for a whole year in advance, since he had had some late payments, and this was going to be a ‘new’ policy.

What else? There was the car inspection, of course, and now my friend must miss a morning at work and go to court to prove that his paperwork is in order and to admit that he is, like the rest of us, sometimes imperfect. The mole’s hill has been magically made into Pike’s Peak. What nonsense.