The line outside the Whitehaven Shelby County Clerk’s Office location had recently moved inside when one customer walked out with a new plate. He walked over to his car, a black Nissan Maxima, turned on some music and began replacing his two-month-expired drive-out tags. 

In-person visits to a county clerk’s office for registration- and renewal-related transactions tend to surge once each month, according to data Shelby County Clerk Wanda Halbert shared in recent emails to media. 

October has seemed to follow most of the same trends as the rest of 2025. But the number of people coming to renew expired car tags has jumped since the Memphis Safe Task Force arrived in the city, Halbert’s data shows. On most days in October, the number of people renewing expired tags has been higher than the busiest days in previous months this year.

Halbert’s chart shows “a January to now trend of late renewals doubling after the taskforce arrived,” she wrote to media. 

“I saw lines that I’ve never seen in the 7 years that I’ve been here,” Halbert told The Daily Memphian.

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