Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-04-03, 00:31:
I also used to love to ride motorcycles. Here's my Suzuki Bandit and my Honda CBR1000RR.
The state of California sent me a bill for the registration on the Honda (the uppermost heap of slag) a couple of years ago, and I threw it in the trash in disgust. I thought that would be the end of it, but they just intercepted the funds out of my state tax refund. I had to spend two hours yesterday listening to terrible hold music in order to speak to someone about getting this straightened out. They had me download a fillable PDF "Statement of Fact" and say for the record that it had been destroyed in the Camp Fire, then fax it to them. I did so, but I was called back by them and informed that my statement "This motorcycle was destroyed in the Camp Fire on November 8 of 2018" has to be changed to "This motorcycle was destroyed in the Paradise Camp Fire on November 8 of 2018." I now have to go and fax the revised form to them.
It seems that something has changed - in the past in California you'd get a notice to pay your registration fees, and if you chose to ignore it, you'd only get into trouble if the vehicle with unpaid registration was parked on a public street, or being operated.
For some reason, out of the four vehicles registered in my name that were destroyed by the fire, this is the only one that has caused the bureaucratic machine to become ensnared in some sort of red tape feedback loop.
"We do these things not because they are easy, but because we thought they would be easy."