Starting Aug. 1, the DMV will resume enforcement of a law that blocks registration renewals for cars that have not been inspected in the past year.

The law was supposed to take effect last November, in a plan to beef up compliance with yearly safety and emissions checkups. Instead, the opposite happened: Inspection rates fell this spring to 2006 levels.

The state Division of Motor Vehicles quit enforcing the inspection requirement a few days after it became law last year, because of glitches that were creating headaches for thousands of lawful car owners.

Troopers stopped writing tickets for tardy inspections, and DMV stopped issuing fines. Drivers realized they could blow off the requirement with impunity.

Now, DMV officials say the problems have been fixed – with help from the General Assembly. ...

We're six months into a confusing transition period between the old way and the new way NC DMV handles car safety and emissions inspections.

How's it going for you and your car?

In November, DMV stopped issuing windshield stickers as proof of inspections, and switched to a new schedule that will shift everybody's inspection date to the same month they renew their car registrations.

I'd like to know how this transition is working. Please let me hear from you at 919-829-4527 or by e-mail at bruce.siceloff@newsobserver.com. Don't forget to include your name and daytime contact info. Did you get your car inspected on time, or did you blow it off? Are you clear about when your inspection is due?

After the change is phased in by November 2011, inspection and registration will be due the same month for every car. Drivers will be required to have current inspections before they get new or renewed registrations.

In the interim, some people will be allowed to go longer than a year between inspections -- some 13 months, some as much as 23 months -- until the two dates are synchronized for everybody.

North Carolinians will say good-bye to windshield inspection stickers starting Saturday.

The Division of Motor Vehicles is starting a new program to synchronize annual renewal dates for car inspections and registration.

The old program:

Most cars had one monthly deadline for emissions and safety inspections, and another deadline for renewing their registrations. . . .

The state Division of Motor Vehicles has stopped decorating driver’s licenses with a silvery hologram that was designed as a nationwide security tool — and derided as the symbol of an anti-American plot.

The foil stamp features the shimmering images of an automobile and a globe centered on North America. It appears on the flip side of 4.6 million licenses issued since December 2006. . . .

Starting Wednesday, new North Carolina drivers under 21 will receive driver’s licenses in a new vertical shape — to remind store clerks that they’re too young to smoke or drink.

Young drivers now receive horizontal licenses that are color-coded with red or yellow borders to reflect the driver' age. The old horizontal licenses remain valid until the driver gets a new one.

The new vertical licenses issued by the state Division of Motor Vehicles will add explicit birthday details in to show when the driver will turn 18 — when tobacco sales are legal — and 21 — when alcohol sales are legal.

The state Division of Motor Vehicles needs an extra month to prepare for the change to a new vehicle inspection system, so North Carolina drivers won’t say goodbye to windshield inspection stickers until November.

DMV’s planned new program for safety and emissions inspections  will end the use of windshield stickers that remind drivers when their next inspections are due.

The big changes are:
- You won't get a windshield sticker again,
- Your inspection and registration renewal deadlines will be synchronized so they fall in the same month, and
- You'll be reminded to get your inspection before DMV will issue a new license tag or renew your old one.

DMV had planned to start the change, and to stop putting new windshield stickers on cars, with inspections that take place after Oct. 1.  But some inspection stations have not yet installed computer equipment needed for the change, so DMV officials said today the change will be postponed to Nov. 1.

As the Road Worrier reported today ("DMV system to wipe out inspection stickers"), drivers will see changes in the safety and emissions inspection program, starting Oct. 1.

Unfortunately, today's print edition omitted lots of helpful, important details (the technical term for this is: big screw-up).

We've added the missing material as sidebars to the online story, but I'll repeat it below, too. Some readers have asked today about online registration, so I've added info about that below.

The big changes are:
- You won't get a windshield sticker again,
- Your inspection and registration renewal deadlines will be synchronized so they fall in the same month, and
- You'll have to get your inspection before DMV will issue a new license tag or renew your old one.

Keep reading below for details about how the inspection program works now -- and how it will change in the future. ...

Maybe somebody in DMV's vehicle registration office was just bored. Maybe they have quotas to fill: send out so many rejection slips, and you've done your job for the day.

For whatever the reason, DMV told a friend of mine it could not accept the check he had mailed in with his automobile license renewal. The check was legible, signed and dated properly, with the correct dollar amount, written in black ink.

His check came back in the mail with a yellow MFR-95A (Rev. 2/07) LICENSE RENEWAL CARD REJECTION NOTICE form. The "other" box was checked, and there was a message written in black ball-point ink:

the division cannot accept checks written in gel ink or colored markers. Please resubmit check writen in black or dark blue ink. Thanks!

Oh good grief. ...

Updated 4:45 p.m. WEDNESDAY. With legislators itching to hit the road in the next few days — maybe by the end of this week — final action was taken several transportation bills in the waning days of the General Assembly:

Wide boats. H 2167 would let fishermen and other recreational boaters haul boats and trailers up to 10 feet wide on state roads without permits, up from the current 8.5-foot limit. It still faces a veto threat from Gov. Mike Easley unless nighttime towing -- dangerous on narrow roads, the Highway Patrol says -- is banned.

The Senate trimmed 6 inches from the nighttime regulation to allow boats and trailers up to 9.5 feet wide on the roads after dark, and approved the bill today. Now the House will consider it and Easley’s effort to keep 8.5 feet as the width limit for nighttime towing.

Driver's licenses. S 1799 authorizes DMV to start printing driver's licenses with laser-engraved black-and-white mugshots instead of the current color photo mugshots. That's partly to save money and also because the mugs would actually be engraved on your plastic license card -- supposedly making it harder than with a printed photo to change your looks with, say, a Groucho mustache and glasses.

Current laser technology is limited to B&W images, but DMV would have the option in the future to change to laser-engraved color images. The Senate approved it and sent it to the governor today.

This bill also backs down from state pledge to deliver all driver's licenses to home addresses by mail. ...

The people at DMV want to go farther back to the future.

First came news of their plan to start delivering your new driver's license by mail. That hasn't happened since 1968, when local DMV offices installed their first Polaroid photo-ID machines and began cranking out fresh plastic
driver's licenses and putting them into your hand before you walked out the door.

Now DMV wants to stop printing your driver's license mugshot in color. If the legislature says it's OK, DMV says it may start producing driver's licenses with black-and-white mugs. ...