Report states half a million WA drivers have expired tabs

The Brief

• CARFAX reports nearly 600,000 people are driving in Washington with expired car registration.
• At the lowest end, this would cost the state $25.6 million.
• The state said they do not keep track of this data.

SEATTLE, Wash. – About 600,000 Washington drivers are on the roads illegally, according to CARFAX, a vehicle history database.

Recent data from CARFAX claims 593,000 people are driving with expired tabs.

“Data scientists analyzed relevant VIN-specific data from CARFAX sources. We have 165,000 sources. That information comes into our database, and our data scientists are able to estimate the number of cars with expired registrations per state,” said Em Nguyen with CARFAX.

If these numbers are accurate, it would cost Washington $25.6 million dollars. That is at the lowest possible value using the state’s base fee ($43.25) for tabs.

FOX 13 Seattle reached out to the DOL to confirm this information. However, a spokesperson with the department told us they do not know the answer.

“We don’t know how many vehicles are driving on Washington roads with expired registrations and that’s because there are a variety of reasons people don’t renew. Perhaps, they sold vehicles, they’ve moved out of state, their car was totaled, maybe they decided to keep the car garaged for several years,” said Rob Wieman with the DOL. “We simply don’t know, and we don’t ask why, and we don’t track them down. We only track active registrations,” Wieman added.

According to a Reddit post from a few months ago, some Washingtonians are taking advantage of that and intentionally not renewing their car tabs.

FOX 13 Seattle reached out to Washington State Senator Marko Liias and Representative Jake Fey, who chair their respective senate and house transportation committees, for comment. We have not yet heard back.

The Source: Information in this story came from CARFAX and the Washington Department of Licensing. Article courtesy of FOX news.