I could, and have, rant for hours about the NC auto inspection racket. Ok, here we go:
Toll roads. For years we were told breathlessly that NC had among the best roads in the country and that having among the highest gasoline tax in the South was a small price to pay. So now I guess we get to keep the high gas taxes and pay to use the road at a toll booth. Stellar. We don't have them near Charlotte, yet. But my dad recently drove on one for like half a mile (from on ramp to exit ramp) on the way to Raleigh and a few weeks later he gets a bill in the mail for 18 cents. So yeah, recouping that 18 cents was definitely worth the cost of postage and some sinecured bureaucrat's time to stuff the envelope.
The "safety and emissions" is rank rent seeking. Like Pan I have also heard that the NC legislature is considering a proposal to do away with it. I doubt it will happen. Too many people getting their bread buttered by having the state force their fellow citizens into paying customers. The last such proposal failed. They also tried a compromise of changing it from every year to every two years. That also failed.
I also have to endure this process every year when my inspection is due. Because of my car's numerous quirks, it constantly throws an error code for a leak in the evaporative control system even though it has been confirmed with a smoke test that there is no actual leak. It is merely a case of the computer detecting a leak condition due to either a bad sensor or programming error of some sort. But none of that matters because "Hell is the impossibility of reason", and that goes doubly so for bureaucracy. Every year I have to reset the error code, then drive the car around long enough for the computer to indicate that it is once again in an "inspectable" condition, but not long enough that it throws the error code again.
Now, living as I do in very close proximity to South Carolina, probably a third of the cars you see on Charlotte roads are from that state, and they have no form of inspections there at all. So while I am subject to all this hassle, ostensibly to keep NC roads safe, those same roads are on a daily basis traversed by South Carolina drivers in cars whose ability to go from point A to point B is truly a miracle unto itself. Drive in SC sometime and you will see for yourself. Cars just drive around with no license plates, not a single functioning form of illumination on the rear of the vehicle at night, etc.
Nevertheless I would happily take the semi-anarchy of SC highways over the petty ministrations of these overweaning bureaucrats any day.
