HAVERHILL — Police are tracking a large number of vehicles that may be illegally registered out of state, mostly in New Hampshire.
In May and June, police issued 54 citations to residents who illegally registered their cars outside of Massachusetts.
"We are now tracking well over 100 potential violators," police Capt. Michael Wrenn said. "They are out there. But whether they all turn out to be legitimate or not, time will tell."
City officials have said that registering a car in New Hampshire is cheaper than in Massachusetts. The auto excise and registration fees are lower, plus New Hampshire does not require its residents to insure their cars as Massachusetts does.
Following an April 12 meeting among police, Mayor James Fiorentini and City Councilors Robert Scatamacchia and Sven Amirian, police renewed their efforts to clamp down on violators.
"We are checking all areas of the city, including downtown apartment buildings where there is a large concentration of vehicles," Wrenn said.
Scatamacchia, who has been pushing to crack down on these scofflaws for about a year, said people who register cars in New Hampshire but live in Haverhill are costing the city money in lost auto excise payments.
His planning and development committee, which includes Amirian and Councilor William Ryan, has been studying the issue.
Amirian said he is pleased with how police have responded and how Scatamacchia has stuck with the issue and kept it in the public eye.
"The fact that police are issuing citations shows that there clearly is a problem, that it was identified and that we're making progress in solving that problem," he said.
Fiorentini said the crackdown is working, and one resident who came up to him while he was having breakfast downtown recently said he took his car off the road because he knew police were checking out-of-state plates.
"This shows the system is working and that it has the deterrent effect that we want it to," the mayor said. "Ultimately, we want the public to have confidence that everyone is sharing in these tough times."
To make reporting of possible violators easier, the city added a link to the main page of its website, haverhill.ma.us. The link is at the bottom right of the page and is under Department Quick Links/Police. The reporting form asks only for the plate number, state and location.
Police say they are devoting what resources they can given higher priority public safety issues, such as robberies, assaults, vandalism, prostitution and drugs.
Wrenn said some officers on patrol make a computer entry when they come across a vehicle with an out-of-state plate, while others manually record the information. Once they log 30 days of a vehicle parked at a residence — not necessarily consecutively — they can issue citations of up to $500 each to violators.
Police even created a new class code entry called "Out of State MV" for their Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system log.
"It just makes it easier to search," Wrenn said.
Across the border in New Hampshire, police say if a Haverhill driver with New Hampshire plates is involved in an accident, it could make it more difficult to track down family members.
Chances are police are going to reach an address in the Granite State where the driver doesn't live, Derry police Capt. Vernon Thomas said.
Both police and officials with the New Hampshire Division of Motor Vehicles have said that when a Massachusetts resident illegally registers a vehicle in New Hampshire, the laws of both states are being violated.
Fiorentini has said catching these scofflaws is not going to raise enough money to save the job of a teacher, police officer or firefighter. But, he said, enforcing the law is the right thing to do and it sends a message of fairness to others who obey the rules.
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