If the wages were better, and if housing was more accessible, that wouldn't be a problem.

I think they're paying people to move here because they can see that in 10/20 years half their tax base will be dead.

Far more are likely caused by faulty drivers, but that's just because people don't pay attention.

Just because a ton of accidents are caused by faulty drivers doesn't mean we should let safety issues slide on vehicles (especially in a state that salts their roads profusely).

First new truck I ever purchased, thought it would make it more than two winters.

You’re a fucking psycho please leave me alone. Stop messaging me. This is harassment

> > > Ultimately what's really a threat to Vermonters is a broken property tax system. As property values increase, so do property taxes and just like California and Colorado, eventually the taxes alone will evict the poor from their homes opening it up for rich people to take everything Vermonters worked for.

This is already happening. You're right it's bad for Vermonters, but the state government - majority non-Vermonter - wants working class Vermonters out and wealthy transplants in.

There was a bill in the legislature to ban airbnbs unless the owner lived in them 60-70% of the year. This would have meant that renting in-law apartments or spare rooms would still be fine, as well as renting out your house for a month while you go somewhere else in the summer, but that speculating on housing just to rent it out short-term wouldn't be allowed.

It got killed very quickly. Our legislators work for wealthy people and tourists, not us.

Is that why they're paying people to move here?

Better yet, expropriate airbnbs (non-owner-occupied) and out-of-staters' third homes (camps for Vermonters are fine). Make them into public housing.

VT has always been a place where a lot of people are here because their parents supplement their income. No way to measure this, but I bet percentage wise, VT has an extremely disproportionate amount of people with allowances.

Anyone who thinks they can "avoid climate change" is already fooling themselves. And the idea that VT is immune is silly. We had a freaking rainbow and a storm that knocked out power for thousands of people LAST WEEK.

By the way, you spell it out when speaking, so it isn't technically an acronym like "neck".

Yeah, don't forget Jersey. Because rich white people from Jersey are climate "refugees", not the people from places like India and Pakistan where it's 120 degrees.

No one really believes they want to build more housing, right? We want VT to be "rural" and it must look like a Currier and Ives print. If that means only rich old people/trustafarians can live here, oh well.

Does anyone think affordable housing would even matter? The workforce/demographic problem is so severe that even new housing doesn't seem like it would be enough. How in the world do you convince young people to move to the oldest (2nd oldest?) state in the country, where there is absolutely nothing to do by design?

For a very long time, an expired inspection sticker was not a "primary" offense, meaning police couldn't pull you over for it. There had to be another reason for a stop. Somewhere in the 2010s, they made it a primary offense and it was used to initiate stops which obviously could be abused by law enforcement.

I suspect after the increased scrutiny of law enforcement in 2020, police departments pulled back from using the sticker as a means to initiate a stop, but I don't believe the primary offense ever went away.

Once the scrutiny subsides, they will start cracking down on stickers again. Only hope is to contact your representatives about it.

Let them know this should not a primary offense and no penalty to your license.

While housing is a need everyone has, Vermont in no way has ever been an easy place to live back to colonial times, expecting others to pay for fresh transplants housing is bullshit. There are plenty of states where you can survive year round outside if you don't want to work for a living. Vermont however isn't one of them, and yes you should suffer the consequences of your actions where if you are a shit person with no marketable skill to survive you do not belong here and if you try the elements will kill you. Try somewhere easy like the Carolinas, Virginias, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama, or Florida. Those are all places you can be a vagrant all year long and survive.

All the trashy comments are why VT isn't the place it used to be. It's not the newcomers, it's the new generations of 'good enough' Vermonters who don't have the pride their five in the ground had. Cars falling apart, homes half painted, outbuildings in ruin but not demolished, broken rusty equipment beyond the point of repair littering the property, and complaining when someone wants them to do something about it.

Downvote away, fellow woodchucks, but it's your fault the state has declined. You owe your parents' and grandparents' legacies better than this.

Haha. Good point. Ive also seen cops parked on the side of Route 5, so it would probably be more readable there

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OK, my registration is expired 😞

The bar for therapy is pretty low these days! I didn’t even swear

Lawmakers have been saying the same EXACT thing for as long as I can remember....

....and yet here we are

Therapy. Highly recommend. I wish you well.

It's also just incredibly insane because I can't imagine where VT would be without people from out of state bringing their money here and spending it. It's just such an ignorant way of thinking.

I grew in VT but spent my 20s and early 30s living all over the country. Anytime I came back to visit with OOS plates I'd get shit from some idiot at least once.

Hell, one time my mom who raised me here came back to visit after moving to CA for work (she lives here again now). She drove across country and the day after she got here we decided to go to lunch at Long Trail. I missed a turn on the way there and turned around in someone's driveway. There was a group of 20 something guys standing out front of the house. I smiled and gave a wave as I turned around, only my front tires breaking the plane of their driveway. One guy sort of waved and started walking towards us. He then came up to the car and said if he saw me and my CA plates use his driveway to turn around again he'd drag me from the car and "beat the ever loving piss out of" me. Dude thought he was being tough to some folks from CA but he was simply threating fellow Vermonters...

Public transportation is lacking and it’s easy to Uber somewhere and have zero chance of Ubering back and you take the same risk with taxis.