Nevada DMV ‘spotter’ program gets over 1,500 reports of expired vehicles

Over 1,500 claims of expired vehicles were submitted by motorists in the Silver State during the first four days of the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles’ new online spotter program, a DMV spokesperson said.

Launched on Friday night, the Nevada Registration Spotter form available on the DMV’s website allows residents to report any vehicle with expired, invalid or missing registrations.

The new system’s purpose is to keep a log of descriptions of vehicles with faulty registrations — to make them more identifiable to law enforcement officials.

“We still do have to actively catch them driving on the road, but now we are more aware of what vehicles to look out for,” DMV spokeswoman Hailey Foster said in an email Tuesday evening.

Staffing shortages among law enforcement and a steady stream of higher priority calls can make enforcing against vehicles with expired registrations a challenge, DMV chief compliance officer JD Decker told the Las Vegas Review-Journal last year.

The DMV has dedicated compliance patrol units, but the team is much smaller than other Southern Nevada law enforcement departments, making collaboration key, Decker said last year.

The explosion of unregistered and expired temporary plates occurred following the 78-day shutdown of the DMV during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, due to a backlog in transactions. That backlog led to long wait times to secure an appointment at DMV offices across the valley.

Previously there was no way for the DMV to track how many vehicles had expired temporary paper license plates or may not have a license plate at all.

With unregistered data now being collected and shared with law enforcement officials, the DMV hopes more focus will now be put on policing vehicles with no registration.

“So, they can hopefully make unplated and unregistered vehicles more of a priority,” Foster said.

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.