SAFER BY HALF

State police have taken an important step to stop the practice of garage shopping for a vehicle inspection sticker by requiring garages to remove half the sticker from cars and trucks that fail state inspections. The next step is for lawmakers to set a fair penalty for owners who continue to drive a car that has failed an inspection.

As of Friday, inspectors are required to diagonally remove half the inspection sticker if a vehicle does not pass the required state safety inspection. The garage must also provide the car owner with a detailed list of deficiencies, according to the Department of Public Safety’s new rules. If the owner goes to another garage, a mechanic there should notice the partial sticker and ask to see the list of problems and evidence that they were fixed.

While most people will abide by these new rules, some won’t and will continue to knowingly drive a vehicle that is unsafe, endangering themselves and others. That’s why the Legislature should now consider an increased fine for those who continue to drive a vehicle with a partial sticker. The current fine for driving with an expired inspection sticker is $122. The penalty for driving a car with known problems, as evidenced by a partial sticker, should be higher.

About 1,300 accidents a year in Maine are determined to be the result of mechanical defects, according to the state police. That’s about 3 percent of the total. Some of the vehicles involved in these crashes had valid inspection stickers.

Last year, the State Police’s Traffic Safety Unit did 2,560 audits of the state’s 2,327 stations that perform state safety inspections. By watching inspectors and reviewing the number of stickers a station sells against the number of mechanics at the garage, the inspectors can determine if a garage is properly inspecting vehicles.

For years, the police have tried to stop fraudulent inspections. Now, officials have begun to go after the other party responsible for violations – vehicle owners who shop around for a garage willing to put a sticker on a vehicle that shouldn’t get one.