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CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- North Carolina started getting rid of safety inspection stickers for your car or truck just a couple of months ago.
If you own a vehicle in North Carolina, you still have to get an inspection. The choice is simple -- pull in for an inspection or risk getting pulled over by a cop and fined $50.
There's just no sticker. So if the sticker is gone, why is the state still collecting money for something called an "E-sticker?" It's your money. Where does it go?
The receipt for a safety inspection shows the station collects $23.75 for the inspection but there's a second charge -- another $6.25 collected for the state for a line called ""E-sticker."
DMV spokeswoman Marge Howell in Raleigh says, "We have termed the program electronic sticker even though there's no sticker, so folks are saying, 'Where's the sticker?'"
Howell says the money goes for programs as varied as volunteer rescue squads and EMS to the state highway fund and the NC Division of Air Quality.
But the vast bulk of the money -- $4.75 of the $6.25 paid by every vehicle owner in the state -- goes to the emissions program account and the telecommunications account.
Howell says that's to pay for electronic authorization -- the computer system that runs the safety inspection program.
"They're going to say it's for electronic purposes with their computers, but really it's just a tax," says Chris Summerfield at Summerfield Auto Repair in Charlotte.
Summerfield says the state's new "electronic" system for processing safety inspections is even slower than the old one.
"It's like that with a lot of things in North Carolina," Summerfield says. "A lot of their computer systems aren't good at all."
Drivers already pay fees for license plates, driver's licenses, property taxes for the vehicle, not to mention gas taxes and highway use fees. Call it an "E-sticker" fee or not. Lots of drivers call it one more tax on driving.
