A short-sighted solution?
3 minute read
December 8, 2025, 9:33 PM
Recently, the Maryland legislature passed a law that made a number of changes to vehicle registration in the state. Most of it was fairly mundane, with changes to the fee structures and such, but one change stood out to me. That was changed the requirements for historic vehicles, and I found it to be a bit short-sighted. The memo that MVA put out about the changes describes it this way:
A new definition of historic vehicles (Class L). The current “at least 20 years old” is replaced by “model years of 1999 or older.” This means that model years 2000 – 2005 vehicles that are currently historic vehicles must convert to a standard registration. These vehicles will also be subject to VEIP requirements and if there is no record of a safety inspection by current owner, a safety inspection.
Note that what is considered to be an historic vehicle now has a hard date baked into the law. This to me comes off as extremely short-sighted as time passes. Right now, in 2025, it makes enough sense because that’s where 25 years lies, which is typically the cutoff for “historic”. That’s where you start to qualify for historic vehicle insurance, and so on. The problem will start to show itself as time passes. For instance, five years from now, the oldest vehicles that would qualify for historic tags would still be model year 1999, which would be thirty years ago. And then in ten years, it will still be 1999, i.e. 35 years ago, vs. the previous 20-25 year lookback period that moved with time.
I get why they did this, though. A lot of people are driving older cars as their daily drivers, and they get the historic tags because they’re eligible for them, and it means that they are not subject to safety inspections and emissions testing, because for historic vehicles, you just sign an affidavit that you will maintain your vehicle in a safe manner, but no one is checking up after you. Thing is, historic plates aren’t supposed to be used on older cars that are still driven daily. They’re only supposed to be for occasional use while you drive something else on a regular basis that has standard plates. It reminds me of the Toyota Prius that I spotted one time that had historic tags:
You know that thing is someone’s regular car, and it just happens to be old enough to qualify for historic plates.
However, the law does not address the root cause of the problem, that people are able to register a vehicle in Maryland as their only car and get historic plates for it. All it does is shift the market for people who don’t want to deal with inspections and such to cars built in the nineties, and they can be had for cheap, if Facebook Marketplace is any indication.
In recent years, I’ve gotten some experience in dealing with historic vehicles, in that I have my bus, former CARTA 3426, titled and registered in Maryland, and I’ve also done some work with historic vehicles in Virginia through my affiliation with Commonwealth Coach & Trolley. The two states’ processes are similar, but have significant differences. In both states, when you get historic plates, you sign the affidavit that you will maintain your vehicle in a safe manner and get your plates. However, in Maryland, no one checks to ensure that you have another vehicle registered with standard plates before they will issue you an historic tag. Additionally, historic vehicles in Maryland are subject to registration renewal, i.e. they get registration stickers just like any other vehicle. In Virginia, you are required to link an historic vehicle registration to a different vehicle that you own that has standard Virginia plates. So if the older vehicle is your only vehicle, you are barred from getting historic plates for it because you have nothing to link it to. You will get standard Virginia plates for it and it is subject to the normal inspection and emissions testing requirements. Additionally, in Virginia, historic vehicle registrations are one-and-done. Once you get an historic registration, it is permanent, and you don’t have to pay any more registration fees for it – but you are paying registration fees for the vehicle that it’s linked to.
I suppose that knowing about Virginia’s method is what frustrates me about Maryland’s law. There is a better way to handle historic vehicles and how to keep people from using it as a way to skirt safety and emissions requirements, and it’s right across the river. Maryland should have taken cues from its neighbor rather than hardcoding a date into the law and making no other changes. Meanwhile, I’m glad that my bus is a 1996, because that means that it keeps its historic tags even after the change in the law.
Categories: New Flyer D35HF, State and local politics
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