Driving in MA with This Expired Item Will Cause You Misery

When I was growing up in northern Berkshire County, I like many others, was excited about getting my driver's license. Of course, I had to go through Driver's Education, study the manuals, and take the road tests. It was certainly an exciting time. In addition, I had a car lined up ready to go as I purchased my brother's girlfriend's car from her parents which was a 1988 Buick Regal, silver, with two riveted metal plates near each rear tire to cover up some rust spots. Plus, the gas gauge was broken. In case you were wondering, yes, I did run out of gas once. That situation occurred on North Summer Street in Adams and guess what? It never happened again. That was a fun experience...lol. Needless to say, I was driving in style but it was my first car, and I was just happy to have the freedom to drive.

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Also, around this time (late '90s) I had a friend that used to drive around with a vehicle that had an expired registration. Obviously, I knew this was illegal. I just didn't know what the extent of the penalty was. Looking back at this memory, I started wondering what the punishment is for driving a vehicle in Massachusetts that has an expired registration.

Plan on Paying Big If you Drive a Vehicle in Massachusetts with a Revoked or Expired Registration

According to the Massachusetts Legislature, Chapter 90, Section 93, if a person operates a motor vehicle in Massachusetts and that vehicle doesn't have an up-to-date/valid registration, the motorist could be nailed with a criminal charge including a fine ranging anywhere from $500 - $1000 and jail time for not more than 10 days. If the motorist does this again, that person will once again be nailed with the same fine and will be sent to the big house for 60 days to one year.

I'm not sure if my friend ever was caught for not having a valid registration as we lost touch but it's certainly not worth driving around with a bogus registration. That I know for sure.

READ ON: Soon, none of us will be driving if the gas prices keep going up. Do you remember these prices?

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.