As a working cop, I always questioned the efficacy of those inspection stickers. If I made a traffic stop, it was one thing I checked, but I don't think I ever wrote a stand-alone ticket for an expired inspection sticker. If there was a problem, I would add it to the list of things, but generally, I'd just warn the motorist to get a new sticker.
The problem with inspection stickers is that it increases the bureaucracy. A portion of the money went to the State Police, a portion went to the Office of Motor Vehicles and a portion went to the actual inspector who conducted the inspection.
But, there is a bill in the state legislature to do away with inspection stickers completely. They would recoup the money by adding $10 to the registration fees. They would use that money to hire an additional 150 state troopers across the state.
Stonewall Republican Rep. Larry Bagley’s bill would eliminate the inspection requirement, but essentially retain the $10 fee by increasing the registration renewal cost. The money that would go to the local inspector under the current system would instead be earmarked for LSP, allowing the agency to hire an additional 150 troopers to patrol Louisiana highways.I thin this is a great idea. But in the interim, I still need to get the truck inspected.
Inspection stickers were used by Japan to beef up their domestic auto industry after WWII.
ReplyDeleteOnce the vehicle was more than five years old, the cost and complexity of the inspections went WAY up. The customer had to get everything on the list fixed and then get another intensive inspection where there was the risk that even more sub-standard equipment would be found. That was an incentive to purchase a new vehicle.
Ostensibly it was to keep unsafe vehicles off the road but the real purpose was to create demand and it was a hidden way of subsidizing their fledgling auto industry.
50 years ago when I came to Kentucky they had inspection stickers which I figured out immediately was just a receipt for $2. Nobody looked at my vehicle. But older vehicles got looked at and a list of problems found. In one case it was an "improper exhaust hanger". the hanger the man engineered was stronger and better than the original equipment. The guy said he'd take it somewhere else so he got his sticker anyway. Kentucky finally did away with the inspections
ReplyDeleteMuch like everything else involving government, it's become a racket/shakedown. Seeing some of the vehicles on the road nowadays, there should be a requirement for a certification of safety, but it should involve an actual inspection. And if they'd check the headlight aim and correct as necessary, well, that would be nirvana.
ReplyDeleteJuly 17, 1975 Uintah County, Utah I was listening to live coverage of the first docking of Russian and American space capsules when a sharp eyed Utah Trooper pulled me over for an expired safety sticker. He was quite annoyed that I wouldn't turn off my radio. I told him he had all day to write me a ticket but this was history in the making and I wasn't going to miss it. He leaned on the window sill and we both listened. Then he wrote me a ticket.
ReplyDeleteAt the time in Utah and Colorado the inspections were done at private repair facilities. Amazing how every vehicle needed repairs, muffler too loud, brakes worn out, etc. and they were there to help you out.
My current state doesn't have inspections, and the nearby neighbor has exhaustive inspections (and high insurance rates), so many people use an address across the line to save money.
ReplyDeleteWhen I lived there, I was actually surprised that the mechanic, who could only charge $11, didn't find something wrong every time I was there!
I have gotten a ticket for an expired registration (which I didn't know was expired, because the documents were unclear) but not for an expired sticker. I knew someone who once drove around with a 10 year out of date sticker! Now they have a different vehicle, so their sticker is only 3 years out of date!
Yep, just a shakedown in another form...
ReplyDeleteState troopers over this way sit in the cloverleaf's and check belts and inspection stickers.
ReplyDeleteOklahoma did away with stickers years ago. I don't think it made much difference. You could buy stickers all over the place and bypass the actual inspection process. kind of like when we had liquor by the wink.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Eaton Rapids Joe is entirely correct. It was so expensive in Japan for an inspection that folks would ditch a five year old car. I heard that the government there would subsidize the purchase of a new car with an old one. I had an auto repair shop for a while and could buy engines with very little miles on them for 2-4 hundred dollars delivered to my shop. There must have been some HUGE junkyards in Japan for that to happen.
ReplyDeletePlace on Claiborne here does it the easy way. Drive up, hand the guy ten bucks and he hands you the sticker. You don't even have to get out of the car. Once I saw that in action I realized how utterly pointless it is. Hire the cops and use them to enforce the law that says when you come to Louisiana you have a month to register and insure your vehicle here instead of letting transplants drive on their old tags forever while every hustler in the hood has Texas tags on their rides even though most of them couldn't find Texas on a map of the southwestern US.
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