State Department Says There's No Penalty For Not Carrying Registration

There are new laws across the state that take effect July 1. One law will impact the way drivers register their cars. 

One of the major changes is if you sell or trade in a vehicle, drivers will keep their license plate. 

According to the new law, if you buy a vehicle from a dealership, the car will come with a paper tag. You would then have 30 days to register the vehicle and avoid penalties. When you register the vehicle, drivers will have a choice of placing an old tag on or purchasing a new one. Those can be purchased from the Oklahoma Tax Commission or your local tag agent.

If you purchase a car from someone other than a dealership and don't have a tag from a previous vehicle, you can still drive the car for five days without a plate. During that time period, the new owner must have a copy of the bill of sale or the assigned title in the car. If the new owner has a tag from a previous vehicle, they can place the tag on their new vehicle after it has been titled and registered. They would have 30 days before having to worry about any penalties. 

One other change under the new law is all drivers are supposed to carry their registration form in their cars. But the Department of Public Safety and the Oklahoma Tax Commission said there's not a penalty in the statute if a driver doesn't have their paper tag in the vehicle. 

So currently, there's really no way to enforce that portion of the law. 

"We have. We've gotten a lot of questions and the main thing people are going to have to understand is when they sell a car, they've got to remember to take that plate," said tag agent with Classen Tag Agency Jeff Segell.

Segell said at least one tag agent from each location had to go through training days before the new law takes effect. 

For agents, he said there will be a software update and some of the questions they ask will change. 

"Where as before we weren't asking about did you keep your old tag, do you have a tag to transfer," said Segell "About the only thing that changes with the registration is the color of the car will now be on the registration, that was not there before."

He thinks the toughest part will just be educating the public on the changes.