Arkansas Traffic Laws on No Insurance & Tags
- You will face penalties for driving without insurance or tags in Arkansas.Arkansas state contour against blurred USA flag image by Stasys Eidiejus from Fotolia.com
If you own a car in Arkansas, you must maintain adequate insurance at all times, keep the paperwork in your vehicle and keep the vehicle's registration tags current. If you are caught without insurance, either by a traffic stop or through the state's electronic database of insurance coverage, you will face penalties in accordance with Arkansas Code Sections 27-22-104 and 108. Driving with expired registration tags, or no tags at all, brings similar consequences. - According to the Fox News affiliate based in Little Rock, Arkansas, fines for driving without tags, or with expired tags, begin at $150. The fines could be steeper according to a number of factors and do not include court costs. Fines for driving without insurance range from $50 to $250 for the first offense, $250 to $500 for the second offense and $500 to $1,000 for the third and subsequent offenses plus a possible year in jail.
- If you are caught without insurance at a traffic stop, you will receive a notice of noncompliance in addition to any citations issued as a result of the reason you were pulled over in the first place. This notice will be forwarded to the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration within ten days.
- The officer will remove and impound your license plates immediately and return them to the Office of Driver Services or the local revenue office. They will issue you a temporary sticker in place of the license plates. The sticker is good for ten days only. If you can prove within this time that the vehicle was properly insured at the time of the traffic stop, you will receive your license plates without penalty.
- If you do not prove that the vehicle was properly insured at the time you were stopped within ten days of the incident, the vehicle's registration will be suspended. It is illegal in Arkansas to drive a vehicle without a valid registration, and you could face fines beginning at $150 for doing so.
- If your plates were confiscated as a result of having no insurance during a traffic stop, you must pay a reinstatement fee of $20 (as of August 2010) to have the registration and license plates returned to you. If you were caught uninsured by the state's electronic database, the reinstatement fee is $50, according to Arkansas Code Section 27-22-108.
