Can I Drive an Unregistered Vehicle in NSW?

The short answer to this question is no. However there are some exceptions to the rules here, depending on the circumstances which several people seem to be unfamiliar with, including the police who are enforcing these rules.
Here are the times that you are allowed to drive an unregistered vehicle on NSW public roads.
1. You are on your way to or from an e safety station.
Either for a rego renewal (pink slip) or unregistered vehicle inspection (blue slip) you are legally allowed to drive to and home again from the place of inspection. I must be driving to the closest registered inspection station. You can not drive past four authorised inspection stations just to get to your desired mechanic, nor can you go to work in the unregistered vehicle then the shopping centre and then on to your mechanic via the pub. You must go to and from the inspection station and straight home.
2. You have an unregistered vehicle permit. When purchasing vehicles interstate or when situations arise that require the driving of an unregistered vehicle a substantial distance you can apply for an unregistered vehicle permit. This gives you a preset number of days in which you are legally allowed to drive the vehicle on the roads whilst its unregistered.
Its important to note that whilst this information is all on Service NSW website, the site is a disaster to navigate and this information is very difficult to find. Additionally many police officers are either not informed of these laws or outright ignore them.
In many cases our clients have been fined whilst driving to and from our workshop for their inspections. These clients then have to have the case heard in court. Every time this is a hands down case however who wants the hassle, the stress and the time off work to sort this out.
The safest way to avoid this problem is get your vehicle registration renewed before it expires. If this is unavoidable or its already too late it is sometimes easier to simply get the vehicle towed.
We have covered more on the registration inspection process in the article listed below.
What you need to know about rego inspections

 

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