Well, it directly leads to registration fees and insurance rates being higher than they would normally with everyone paying in properly. There's also air quality concerns with people not going for smog checks. So people not playing that game are getting hurt by the people who do.

Having laws that only some people follow, and others do not without penalty, bothers everyone's natural sense of fairness and eventually rots the whole concept of following laws.

We have a lowering trust society for many reasons. I don't doubt it plays a role, but I'm sure this is low on the list of contributing factors. The required deployment of LEO to our communities to enforce this as suggested would lower trust further. There are many more impactful ways to raise trust, and most of them involve addressing the corruption of those in power.

>natural sense of fairness

This sets off my spidey senses in the same way that "social contract", "law abiding citizen" and other turns of phrase like that do.

>Having laws that only some people follow

It's not like these people are all part of the system and protected from consequences. They're just saying fuggit consequences be damned. Be happy that some have the balls to tell the system to shove it. You can choose to be one of them any time you want.

There's a certain kind of person cops don't like to deal with unless it's going to get them a nice promotional-tier felony arrest. Not a lot of people looking to wrestle with a gang banger over a registration ticket. If you look like a functional member of society though they'll ruthlessly enforce whatever money they can get out of you.

Anyone can buy a Chrysler 300 and pay the local detailing shop to limo tint it. There's nothing stopping you from looking like a tough nut to crack.

Regardless, the cops harass the shit out of people who "look sketchy" because your bullshit license plate or whatever pretext is what gets you the foot in the door to the felony BS.