Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

One of My Pet Peeves

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by

Dick Hall-Sizemore
in ,

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

State law exempts from registration fees trucks, trailers, and other motor vehicles, used solely for farm purposes either on highways near a farmer’s land or for hauling farm products to market (see here and here).    This is one of the most abused Code provisions.

The picture above was taken in my neighborhood.  Take my word for it:  there are no farms anywhere close.

This picture was taken on one of the main streets in Richmond or Henrico (I forget which).  Unless the driver of that truck was taking a sofa that he had grown on his farm to market to sell it, he was violating the law.  Violation of the statutes is a traffic infraction and punishable by a fine up to $250.

Until 2022, law enforcement officers were authorized to require drivers of vehicles claiming this exemption to provide the address of the lands owned or leased by the vehicle’s owner and used for agricultural purposes and the address of the vehicle’s owner.  I doubt that happened often.

Beginning July 1 of this year, persons wishing to operate farm vehicles without regular license tags must attach an official placard provided by DMV to the vehicle.  To obtain the placard, the owner of the vehicle must file an application with DMV identifying the farm and the commodities that will be transported on the exempt vehicle along with a statement that the vehicle will be used only for the exempt purposes set out in law.

If this requirement is enforced, there should be fewer “farm use” vehicles seen in urban areas.

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69 responses to “One of My Pet Peeves”

  1. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    On vacation a few years back, we spent a few days on Long Island, Maine. None of the cars had current inspection tags, and few had current license plates. They were YEARS out of date.

    Turns out the folks on the island just revolted en masse against taking a ferry to the mainland for vehicle inspections and the State relented, finally exempting them by law from annual inspections.

    Apparently once they succeeded with inspections, they moved on to license plates. Given an inch, they took the mile.

  2. Thomas Dixon Avatar
    Thomas Dixon

    Thanks for the tip.

  3. Eric the half a troll Avatar
    Eric the half a troll

    You are not wrong to be sure.

  4. WayneS Avatar
    WayneS

    Unless the driver of that truck was taking a sofa that he had grown on his farm to market to sell it, he was violating the law.

    He could have been taking the sofa to his farm for planting…

    😉

  5. WayneS Avatar
    WayneS

    Unless the driver of that truck was taking a sofa that he had grown on his farm to market to sell it, he was violating the law.

    He could have been taking the sofa to his farm for planting…

    😉

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      I had not thought of that. I figured something that big had to be mature and not a seedling.

      1. f/k/a_tmtfairfax Avatar
        f/k/a_tmtfairfax

        Maybe the driver was moving the sofa to a farm field to watch corn grow.

        1. Lefty665 Avatar
          Lefty665

          Or the paint to dry on his barn.

    2. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      But, what will he raise…
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=15&v=HdkRDG4_4Qw&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY&feature=emb_logo

    3. DJRippert Avatar
      DJRippert

      I hear the sofa unexpectedly appeared on the front lawn of a liberal snowflake. The snowflake immediately saw White Supremacism and contacted the local citizen support group (used in lieu of the defunded police) to report a hate crime. Adam Schiff insisted that he had first hand evidence of the underlying racism and collusion of the sofa. Joe Biden commented that, “when I was a young rapscallion growing up in Delsylvania, Corn Pop tried to drop a racist sofa on the lawn of the mosque where I used to worship. I kicked his butt.” John Durham was called to investigate. After two years, Durham determined that an abandoned sofa was not sufficient evidence of a hate crime to warrant further investigation. In fact, the local citizen support group should never have gone past writing up the abandoned sofa as a form of littering. Adam Schiff, unable to produce any evidence of the sofa’s ties to white supremacism (despite earlier claims to the contrary) called Durham’s investigation useless.

      Meanwhile, a farmer saw the abandoned sofa and carted it away.

  6. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead

    If the new law is a secondary violation it will be enforced rarely.

    1. Nathan Avatar
      Nathan

      Never discount the monetary impact. Farm use vehicles may get an eagle eye for burned out taillights or any other excuse.

      “A new state law regulating “farm use” license plates does more than just crack down on those who may be abusing the current system that allows owners of certain farm vehicles to not register them with the state. It could also result in a marginal increase in Rappahannock County’s personal property tax revenue.”

      https://www.rappnews.com/news/transportation/regulation-of-farm-plates-may-shore-up-lost-personal-property-tax-revenue-in-rappahannock/article_2e6de3c4-fcb2-11ec-8f2f-9bbf9969f523.html

      1. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
        James Wyatt Whitehead

        I could see the Rappahannock Sheriff enforcing this. They love writing tickets out there. Better be careful. A farmer’s revolt will be painful on election day.

        1. WayneS Avatar
          WayneS

          One summer night a long time ago, I was given a major break by a Rappahannock County Deputy.

          I was on a motorcycle, and he got me on radar at 109 mph just outside ‘Little’ Washington. I was almost at the Culpeper County line by the time he caught up with me, but I pulled over as soon as I saw his lights behind me.

          I think that fact, my calm and friendly demeanor, and the joke I made when he told me the radar reading: “I didn’t even know your radar units showed three digits”, are the reasons he gave me a ticket for going 74 in a 55 zone. In any event, I was (and still am) grateful for his consideration.

          1. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            In 1973, I outran a State Trooper outside Crewe on Rte. 460. My guess is he never told anyone that his Fairlane 428ci 4bbl was left by a 1600cc Pinto.

            It was night, perfect timing by a following car, a hilltop, two cut-throughs perfectly placed, and two U-turns, what made the seemingly impossible possible.

          2. Lefty665 Avatar
            Lefty665

            A good Deputy will do that. He probably enjoyed the excuse to stick his foot in it and go fast enough to catch you.

            There are a bunch of them outside of urban Virginia. There’s some stinkers too, but most of them I’ve run into have a pretty good sense of reasonable justice.

          3. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            And I was riding very much too fast on a public highway. Him pulling me over that night slowed me way down for a couple of months afterwards – and to a certain extent permanently. I’ve not exceeded 100 mph on the street more than a handful of times in the ensuing 30 years.

          4. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            And I was riding very much too fast on a public highway. Him pulling me over that night slowed me way down for a couple of months afterwards – and to a certain extent permanently. I’ve not exceeded 100 mph on the street more than a handful of times in the ensuing 30 years.

          5. Lefty665 Avatar
            Lefty665

            Good boy. There was a time in my life when burying the speedometer was a fairly regular occurrence, but not any more. Cruise control keeps me from getting inadvertent tickets these days.

            When I was a kid “rat racing” was our preferred form of entertainment. Chasing one another around suburban streets can be exciting.

          6. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            Cruise control keeps me from getting inadvertent tickets these days.

            Absolutely. In fact, the cruise control in my everyday driver car just stopped working last week. It’s an old car and not worth a lot of money, so I’m going to see if I can fix it myself. If I cannot get it working, I will probably pay to have it repaired.

            The bill will be cheaper than a couple of speeding tickets will be, and it will not put ‘bad’ points on my license.

          7. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            Cruise control keeps me from getting inadvertent tickets these days.

            Absolutely. In fact, the cruise control in my everyday driver car just stopped working last week. It’s an old car and not worth a lot of money, so I’m going to see if I can fix it myself. If I cannot get it working, I will probably pay to have it repaired.

            The bill will be cheaper than a couple of speeding tickets will be, and it will not put ‘bad’ points on my license.

          8. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            Ya know, I had basic rule about my car and doing or directing work. “I’ll let a mechanic make it go, but only I work on what makes it stop.” My attitude was the result of a brake failure less than a week after the dealership replaced the shoes and serviced the brakes.

            But, cruise control? Lemme see, that also makes the car accelerate all by its lone if it thinks it needs to? I dunno, maybe do the work but let a real mechanic check you.

          9. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            I sort of am a real mechanic. In fact I worked part time as a Saab technician for ten years.

            The problem I have these days is a lack of will to work on my own stuff. I’ll do it if it’ll save me more than, say, $500, but otherwise I prefer to turn it over to others. That even carries over to motorcycles since I got the Ducati. I can do a valves adjustment on a desodromic valve train, but I do not want to do it.

            I’m with you on the brakes, though!

          10. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            I sort of am a real mechanic. In fact I worked part time as a Saab technician for ten years.

            The problem I have these days is a lack of will to work on my own stuff. I’ll do it if it’ll save me more than, say, $500, but otherwise I prefer to turn it over to others. That even carries over to motorcycles since I got the Ducati. I can do a valves adjustment on a desodromic valve train, but I do not want to do it.

            I’m with you on the brakes, though!

          11. Lefty665 Avatar
            Lefty665

            How in the world did you get away with being “part time” as a Saab mechanic?

            Not doing it all myself has been a big adjustment, and hard. But as I get older I’m adjusting.

            Several years ago I let what I thought were good mechanics do brake pads on my truck. They did not tighten the caliper bolts on one wheel. Several thousand miles later, much of it towing a trailer, and much of it at speed, one bolt fell out, when I stepped on the brake the caliper pivoted and locked up against the wheel. The wheel stopped abruptly and the caliper punched a hole in it flattening the tire too. I was very lucky, it was at low speed turning off the highway. Subsequent brake jobs I’ve done myself.

          12. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            A guy near where I was living left his job as service manager (after being a technician for years) at a dealership and opened his own Saab specialty shop. I owned a couple of Saabs and got to know him and the other techs. They soon realized I am mechanically inclined and trained me on the original Saab 900, allowing me to work when I had free time during their business hours )and sometimes after-hours).

            For the first year or so I was pretty much an assistant to other technicians, but once I could do tasks like replacing a water pump in less than half an hour (they face the firewall in a 900) and having an engine & gearbox ready to pull in 45 minutes, they had me working independently.

            The fact of the matter is, about half the money I earned there went towards buying tools from the Snap-On guy. Those things are as addictive as crack cocaine.

          13. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            A guy near where I was living left his job as service manager (after being a technician for years) at a dealership and opened his own Saab specialty shop. I owned a couple of Saabs and got to know him and the other techs. They soon realized I am mechanically inclined and trained me on the original Saab 900, allowing me to work when I had free time during their business hours (and sometimes after-hours).

            For the first year or so I was pretty much an assistant to other technicians, but once I could do tasks like replacing a water pump in less than half an hour (they face the firewall in a 900) and having an engine & gearbox ready to pull in 45 minutes, they had me working independently.

            The fact of the matter is, about half the money I earned there went towards buying tools from the Snap-On guy. Those things are as addictive as crack cocaine.

            And I saved a lot of money on maintenance for my own cars.

          14. Lefty665 Avatar
            Lefty665

            Neat. I was really just being snarky about how much maintenance Saabs needed. Beating the flat rate times is a good path to popularity.

            On my F150 Ecoboost the water pump is inside the front engine cover. It’s a beast to change. What were Ford and Saab thinking? Water pumps have worked perfectly well for 100+ years stuck right out front where they are easy to replace when the bearings or seals invariably crap out.

            A couple of buddies of mine learned to head the other way when the Snap-On truck showed up. But it sure made for pretty roll aways, and you’re right, it’s an addiction.

          15. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            The entire engine in the original Saab 900 was mounted “backwards” with the transmission/gearbox immediately beneath the engine, connected by a triple-row drive chain (similar to a Japanese 4-cylinder motorcycle).

            It made things like changing belts and replacing water pumps a little more difficult, although once you learned a few tricks it was not bad at all. And this arrangement did simplify changing a clutch. The clutch in a Saab 900 could be removed and replaced in less than one hour without separating the engine and gear box.

          16. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            The easiest valve adjustment I ever did was on that old Ford 1600cc crossflow. What a dream engine. In 1979, with 140K miles, I noticed a ton of smoke one Friday night. By 6 that night, I had stripped the head off and found the problem. You could drop a screwdriver along side the #1 piston.

            By 8 on Saturday night, she had all new pistons and was buttoned back up and I drove it for two more years before giving to a friends yonger brother.

          17. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            Cruise control keeps me from getting inadvertent tickets these days.

            Absolutely. In fact, the cruise control in my everyday driver car just stopped working last week. It’s an old car and not worth a lot of money, so I’m going to see if I can fix it myself. If I cannot get it working, I will probably pay to have it repaired.

            The bill will be cheaper than a couple of speeding tickets will be, and it will not put ‘bad’ points on my license.

          18. Lefty665 Avatar
            Lefty665

            Fastest ticket I ever got was because my cruise control had broken. It was new years day and I was headed up 522 to Manassas to install new tax tables for a customer. That chunk of very rural road is unusual in that it is surveyed straight with a series of hills and dips. Each time I went down a hill I picked up a few MPH and maintained them uphill. Do that a few times and it adds up to 90. That day it was deserted except for the State Trooper headed the other direction when we popped a hill. It surprised him as much as it did me.

            The cruise control failure was disconcerting. The switch on the brake pedal failed. When braking it would disconnect but foot off the brake it would resume, and with vigor to try to catch up to the preset speed. First time it happened I was in traffic. It definitely got my attention. Late ’80s GM letting end users do product engineering at its best.

          19. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
            James Wyatt Whitehead

            Man you were lucky! My poor wife was ticketed twice in one day for speeding in Flint Hill. When passing thru Rappahannock, I drive like I’m going to a funeral.

          20. Lefty665 Avatar
            Lefty665

            “My poor wife was ticketed twice in one day”

            Guess they figured the first time they failed to get her attention so they tried again.

          21. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            I was, indeed, very lucky.

          22. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            In 1973, I outran a State Trooper outside Crewe on Rte. 460. My guess is he never told anyone that his Fairlane 428ci 4bbl was left by a 1600cc Pinto.

            It was night, perfect timing by a following car, a hilltop, two cut-throughs perfectly placed, and two U-turns, what made the seemingly impossible possible.

          23. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
            James Wyatt Whitehead

            Better watch out. They always get the last laugh!
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f3CFzahrRs

          24. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            I assure you, after 50 years, he can have that last laugh. I’m strictly a speed limit + 5 maximum driver now. Or try to be.

            The most harrowing drive I have ever had was trying to drive JUST 60MPH on the 495 in Maryland. I felt like a rock in a raging river. If was the cameras that kept me in check, assuming there really were cameras and not just signs.

      2. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
        Dick Hall-Sizemore

        Thanks for this reference. I did not realize that others had noticed this change. Nor did I realize that the Farm Bureau had lobbied for it. Finally, I had not thought of the personal property angle. It simply has been one of my pet peeves.

    2. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      These sections are not classified as secondary offenses.

  7. how_it_works Avatar
    how_it_works

    I once saw the driver of a vehicle with “FARM USE” tags return to his vehicle from the ABC store with a bottle in a paper bag.

    I assume that might have been some kind of fertilizer for his farm?

    1. WayneS Avatar
      WayneS

      Corn, rye, wheat, potatoes, juniper & sloe berries, etc. – these are all agricultural products, regardless of their current form…

    2. WayneS Avatar
      WayneS

      Corn, rye, wheat, potatoes, juniper & sloe berries, etc. – these are all agricultural products, regardless of their current form…

    3. WayneS Avatar
      WayneS

      Corn, rye, wheat, potatoes, juniper & sloe berries, etc. – these are all agricultural products, regardless of their current form…

    4. WayneS Avatar
      WayneS

      Corn, rye, wheat, potatoes, juniper & sloe berries, etc. – these are all agricultural products, regardless of their current form…

    5. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      That’s the other end of the agricultural product cycle, going from the market to the farm, and very efficiently in concentrated form. Just one more thing we can thank farmers for.

  8. James Kiser Avatar
    James Kiser

    Good luck with that.

  9. WayneS Avatar
    WayneS

    The statutory maximum distance from ‘the farm’ for using “Farm Use” tags is 75 miles. Are there farms within 75 miles of your neighborhood?

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      There are. And if that trailer is used exclusively for agricultural uses on land far away, I will concede the point.

    2. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      It’s a good bet that there are farms within 75 miles of every square inch of Virginia.

  10. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    Dick’s pro-life sentiment over the weekend gave me hope for him. Nope, he’s a real “government exists to rule us all and tax us all” Democrat. 🙂 Nobody tell him about the special treatment farm vehicles get on fuel taxes (I think that’s still in force.)

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      I am not objecting to the break that farmers get from not having to register motor vehicles that they use for farm work, but which necessarily also have to use public highways. I was objecting to folks who abuse (disobey) that law by slapping a “Farm Use” sign on their cars when they are obviously not farmers. (My late father-in-law had an old flat-bed truck with that sign that he used to haul tobacco to market. He also had a gas tank in his yard on which he did not pay fuel taxes.)

      1. Stephen Haner Avatar
        Stephen Haner

        I worked for a little company down on the James River that had a few thousand vehicles just as busy as any farm vehicle. No tax breaks for the shipyard! It is actually an interesting issue of fairness along with being one of your pet peeves. 🙂 The farm lobby swings a big stick still.

        1. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          I worked for a rental car company, local franchise, in college. They had 30-some cars that they registered in Delaware. Every 6 months we’d drive to an NC gas station, fill up, and get a receipt to prove the car left Virginia.

      2. WayneS Avatar
        WayneS

        There are definitely people out there who abuse that privilege. I once saw a “Farm Use” tag on a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

        1. how_it_works Avatar
          how_it_works

          Worst I’ve ever seen is a “Farm Use” tag on a Honda Civic.

        2. how_it_works Avatar
          how_it_works

          OTOH, there are some who believe that the Harley Davidson motorcycle has more in common with an agricultural implement than a modern motorcycle.

        3. how_it_works Avatar
          how_it_works

          OTOH, there are some who believe that the Harley Davidson motorcycle has more in common with an agricultural implement than a modern motorcycle.

          1. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            True.

        4. Lefty665 Avatar
          Lefty665

          There’s a local one around me that’s a Jag with farm use tags. It’s more a FU government statement. Apparently Tea Party Gasden Flag tags are too compliant. Be interesting to see if he files with DMV to maintain his status. We may get to see him occasionally with a bale of hay sticking out of the trunk.

          1. WayneS Avatar
            WayneS

            Maybe he grows “hemp” hydroponically in his basement. “Hemp” is an agricultural product. The Jaguar could be used for deliveries to end-users. You know, for making rope and such…

          2. Lefty665 Avatar
            Lefty665

            And with the change in the laws, 4 of those other “hemp like” plants are legal too. He might have to add a second delivery vehicle. Don’t ‘ya just love how capitalism makes free the marketplace?

  11. Lefty665 Avatar
    Lefty665

    DMV site says the law changes 7/1/2024. I thought it was this year too, but that’s not what DMV says. Did the GA back it up a year?

    1. Nathan Avatar
      Nathan

      The legislation and all news articles say it’s July 1, 2023. Only the DMV says 2014. Assume they aren’t ready?

      https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/vehicles/#farm.asp

      Seems like there should have been some publicity of the change. I can’t find any, however.

      1. Lefty665 Avatar
        Lefty665

        Guess if you’re DMV legislated changes in the law are optional. What’s a year between Admin agencies and the lege?

        The site does say: “More information on the application process for permanent farm use placards will be available at a later date.”

        Not ready seems a pretty good bet. They’ve only had a year and a half to get ready.

  12. Lefty665 Avatar
    Lefty665

    Expect it won’t be much of an issue in rural areas. Deputies know who’s local and what they do. Urban “farmers” experience might vary.

  13. VaPragamtist Avatar
    VaPragamtist

    My license plate-related pet peeve are the people who put darkened or tinted covers over their plates so you can’t read them. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal.

  14. James C. Sherlock Avatar
    James C. Sherlock

    Pretty strange pet peeve.

    1. WayneS Avatar
      WayneS

      Pet peeves are what they are. They do not need to be justified.

      😉

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