Can my car be parked on the road without insurance?

The only thing worse than coming out to your vehicle to find a parking ticket on your windshield is coming out to discover that your vehicle has been towed or hit when you weren’t looking.

Unfortunately, a lot of things happen to parked cars every year. Even if you park on the side in a seemingly safe spot, drunk drivers, teens, and others can be reckless.

If your uninsured car is parked on the street, there’s a chance that your car could be towed away and impounded. The only way to get your car back is to prove your identity and pay hook-up, towing, and storage fees.

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Since parking your uninsured vehicle on the road or even at a mall or other public place can turn into an expensive mistake, it’s important that you comply with the law.

Sure, drivers park their uninsured cars in the driveway all the time without penalty, but a time will come when an official will order for the car to be towed. This happens after a car has been ticketed a certain amount of times or if it’s in a dangerous spot. Whatever the case, a good insurance plan can help.

Why do vehicles need to be registered?

The state has a Department of Motor Vehicles to provide identification, motor vehicle licensing, and driver licensing services to residents of the state. They monitor auto registrations, licensing, and many other things when you’re talking about driving on a public street.

The agency plays a major role in helping educate the public and enforce state legislation. All cars operated on state highways and local roads must be registered through the DMV.

Since you have to report your vehicle’s status as soon as you take ownership, you need to learn what the purpose of a vehicle registration is.

This registration identifies a car, the car’s legal owner, where the vehicle is stored, and how much the owner must pay in taxes to drive the vehicle on public roadways. You can’t drive, tow, or park a car on public roads without valid license plates.

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Does every car need insurance?

You need to have active registration placards to drive your vehicle and park it on public roads, but does that mean that you need insurance? In most states, auto insurance is mandatory.

Read more: What year did car insurance become mandatory?

When you’re required to purchase motor vehicle liability insurance, having a registration means that you have to have insurance.

While auto insurance is typically required, there are states where you don’t have to maintain insurance.

In Virginia and New Hampshire, you can pay an uninsured motorist fee, and you don’t have to pay premiums each and every month. Since there’s an exception to the general rule, you don’t always have to have insurance just to own a registered vehicle. If you get in an accident, you will not have any insurance coverage, leaving you vulnerable to lawsuits, injuries, etc. So, most car owners would only want to use this option if they were storing their car on private property. Unfortunately, many parked cars on the road can be hit and damaged. They can also be towed if the city is doing work on that road.

Read more: Can I tow my car with no insurance?

What are the alternative ways to satisfy the law?

If you live in a state with financial responsibility laws, there are alternative ways to get around the insurance requirement. Of course, with any of these alternatives, you would need to cover your own medical bills and property damage repair bills after an accident. They’re just meant to prove you can pay for a certain amount of liability if you cause an accident. You can deposit cash with the treasurer, apply for a self-insurance certificate, or apply for a surety bond. Like standard insurance, you can be sued if your liability coverage is not enough. More importantly, you’d have to add more money or repurchase a bond if you cause an accident depleting the funds.

If you comply with an alternative filing method and the DMV accepts the proof, you don’t technically need insurance to maintain your registration or park your car on the road.

With this being said, alternative methods generally cost more than buying insurance in the first place. Imagine depositing the full amount of your liability coverage into a fund all at once. This could be $35,000 or more at once when cheap insurance might only cost you $100 a month or less. This is more common for medium to large companies looking to self-insure their own vehicle fleets.

Can you park a vehicle that’s filed as Planned Non-Operable on the road?

If you’re not driving your vehicle regularly, it may make more sense for you to report your vehicle as Planned Non-Operable.

Filing the car as PNO means that you don’t plan on driving, storing, parking, or towing the vehicle on the road or a highway for the entire registration period.

If your vehicle currently has a PNO filing, you can only keep it parked in your driveway or on private property elsewhere.

You don’t need insurance on the car to do this, but you can’t park the car on the road with or without insurance because it violates the conditions to pay the small PNO fee. If you do park the car on the road, it can be towed and impounded. (For more information, read our “How do I get my impounded car back?“).

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Can my car be parked on the road without insurance? The Bottom Line

You don’t need insurance on the car to do this, but you can’t park the car on the road with or without insurance because it violates the conditions to pay the small PNO fee. If you do park the car on the road, it can be towed and impounded.

If you don’t have insurance, and you need to move your car, it’s time to price how much liability insurance will cost. Use an online quote comparison tool, and you can find affordable insurance and apply for it all in a matter of minutes.

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