New Jersey: no registration, what's the normal penalty?

What is the name of your state? New Jersey.

I'm asking on behalf of a friend of mine. I still have to get some details from him, but here's the gist of what I have so far.

He says he got pulled over, and his vehicle impounded, because he neglected to renew his registration. Ok, fair enough.

The violation marked on the ticket is 39:3-4, unregistered vehicle.

Now here's where it gets funny. I know when I got ticketed for that last year, it was a $44 fine.

He says his ticket says he has to pay $173 or so.

Further, he said the police officer told him that he MUST come to court to plead to a different charge, otherwise he'll risk losing his license.

I've NEVER heard of losing your license because of an unregistered vehicle before.

Further, the police officer set the date on the ticket of November 13th. The box is NOT marked saying court appearance required, but being somewhat intimidated by the officer, he did call to find out about court dates.

The township says that he can't go on November 13th because the officer won't be there . . despite the fact that that's what he put on the ticket.


What exactly is going on here? Has something changed within the last year or so in New Jersey, or is this officer trying to pull something funny?

What exactly *is* the actual penalty for driving a vehicle with an expired registration? I tried checking something online, and the best I was able to find was that the penalty is a fine not to exceed $100....

I don't know if it's outdated or not, but that's what I found at the following URL:

http://lis.njleg.state.nj.us/cgi-bin/om_isapi.dll?clientID=2096817&Depth=2&depth=2
&expandheadings=on&headingswithhits=on&hitsperheading=on&infobase=
statutes.nfo&record={D6BC}&softpage=Document42



Quick correction . . my friend just called me, and he says that 39:3-4 is checked on the ticket, which is a $44 fine, but that the officer wrote in "failure to exhibit documents" and added in an additional penalty.

BUT, my friend showed him his license, insurance, and registration. It's just that the registration was expired.

Does he have any recourse here? And I'm still not sure how the threat of license revocation works in with this.