Bird
Rest in Peace
Yep, keeping vehicle titles up to date has long been a problem. And one that I had lots of experience with many years ago.
I was a senior in high school when I very briefly had an old Pontiac (in my Dad's name). I sold it for $50 and Dad signed the title and gave it to the buyer. The buyer said he had one of the same model with a blown engine. The one I sold him had a good engine; bad transmission. Several months later, I got out of school one evening, went to work at the service station and Dad told me the chief of police had come by with some kind of inquiry about that old Pontiac and Dad told him I was the only one who ever drove it. Sure enough, the chief showed up in just a few minutes, and it seemed the title was still in Dad's name, and that Pontiac had been used as a getaway car in a burglary. The chief asked me if ever saw the car and I told him I saw it go by nearly every day, so he asked me to call if I saw it. Sure enough, the next day it went by; stood out like a sore thumb, white over green with white fender skirts. So I called the chief and he caught the guy before he got to the next town north of us.
Dallas used to have a citizens group that mailed post cards to the registered owners of cars they saw committing a traffic violation; no penalty of course. I once got one of the letters that said my car was seen speeding in Dallas on a certain date and time and location. It was a car that I had traded in to a dealer a couple of months earlier.
One of my jobs as a police captain in the '70s included the Dallas auto pound where we sold an average of 125 cars a week; auction every Monday morning. Most of them badly wrecked of course and were sold to salvage yards. But I had 2 clerks whose only job was to send a certified letter to the "registered" owner of each vehicle telling them that we would sell it on a certain date if they didn't claim it before then. We found that more than 40% of the vehicles no longer belonged to the "registered" owner. Back then I knew the man in charge at the state and he told me one of their never met goals was to get the registration records up to date and correct in 40% of the cases.
In the 1960s, I once bought a NEW motorcycle from a Dallas dealer; paid cash for it. But after several months and no title, I found Dallas County had sent a large shipment of title applications to the state in the U.S. mail and they had disappeared. So I went to the state office and applied for a duplicate title and got lt. I eventually received the original title, so now I've got two valid titles for the same bike. And when I later traded that bike in to a dealer for a bigger one, I gave him both titles and told him why I had two. It was many months later when I got a letter from the state saying that I had two titles for the same bike and to mail one of them to the state. I sent a letter telling them what I'd done with the titles and never heard anything more from them.
I think Texas has gotten those kinds of problems corrected now, but when I sell or trade a motor vehicle, I promptly notify the state.:laughing:
I was a senior in high school when I very briefly had an old Pontiac (in my Dad's name). I sold it for $50 and Dad signed the title and gave it to the buyer. The buyer said he had one of the same model with a blown engine. The one I sold him had a good engine; bad transmission. Several months later, I got out of school one evening, went to work at the service station and Dad told me the chief of police had come by with some kind of inquiry about that old Pontiac and Dad told him I was the only one who ever drove it. Sure enough, the chief showed up in just a few minutes, and it seemed the title was still in Dad's name, and that Pontiac had been used as a getaway car in a burglary. The chief asked me if ever saw the car and I told him I saw it go by nearly every day, so he asked me to call if I saw it. Sure enough, the next day it went by; stood out like a sore thumb, white over green with white fender skirts. So I called the chief and he caught the guy before he got to the next town north of us.
Dallas used to have a citizens group that mailed post cards to the registered owners of cars they saw committing a traffic violation; no penalty of course. I once got one of the letters that said my car was seen speeding in Dallas on a certain date and time and location. It was a car that I had traded in to a dealer a couple of months earlier.
One of my jobs as a police captain in the '70s included the Dallas auto pound where we sold an average of 125 cars a week; auction every Monday morning. Most of them badly wrecked of course and were sold to salvage yards. But I had 2 clerks whose only job was to send a certified letter to the "registered" owner of each vehicle telling them that we would sell it on a certain date if they didn't claim it before then. We found that more than 40% of the vehicles no longer belonged to the "registered" owner. Back then I knew the man in charge at the state and he told me one of their never met goals was to get the registration records up to date and correct in 40% of the cases.
In the 1960s, I once bought a NEW motorcycle from a Dallas dealer; paid cash for it. But after several months and no title, I found Dallas County had sent a large shipment of title applications to the state in the U.S. mail and they had disappeared. So I went to the state office and applied for a duplicate title and got lt. I eventually received the original title, so now I've got two valid titles for the same bike. And when I later traded that bike in to a dealer for a bigger one, I gave him both titles and told him why I had two. It was many months later when I got a letter from the state saying that I had two titles for the same bike and to mail one of them to the state. I sent a letter telling them what I'd done with the titles and never heard anything more from them.
I think Texas has gotten those kinds of problems corrected now, but when I sell or trade a motor vehicle, I promptly notify the state.:laughing:
. 
