One sticker for all has begun

Hope it wasn’t too confusing for you if you had to deal with it this week.

On Monday – the first full day under the new system for registering cars, trucks, trailers and motorcycles in Texas – drivers trying to abide by the new law faced frustration as misunderstandings and a computer glitch led to overcharges for some motorists.

The confusion stemmed mostly from new rules about how certain fees are collected. Under the old two-sticker system, car owners in the Houston area paid a flat fee of $39.75 for an inspection sticker – $25.50 to the inspection station and a $14.25 clean air fee the inspection station collected and forwarded to the state.

Under the new system, which went into effect Sunday, motorists are required to pay the inspection station only its $25.50. The clean air fee now is added to the cost of registering the vehicle.

And therein lay the problem.

On Monday, many motorists who showed up at one of the 16 Harris County offices where owners can register vehicles reported they had been charged the $14.25 clean air fee twice. Similar problems were being reported in other counties.

“Things are not going well in a lot of places,” said Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector Mike Sullivan, whose office is in charge of vehicle registration.

Monday was the first day tax collectors and motorists had to deal with the changes, and state officials relied on a computer database to link inspection and registration information.

State officials offered a more sanguine assessment of how the switch went on its first day.

“Overall, the system is performing as expected,” said Adam Shaivitz, spokesman for the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. “A majority of inspections were verified electronically at the time of vehicle registration.”

But not well enough, apparently, to avoid frustration here and elsewhere in the state where similar problems were being encountered.

One of our cars was inspected and registered as of January, so it was all under the old system. The other has been registered, but its inspection expires this month. My understanding of how this works is that we’ll get it inspected as before, and then next year both cars will be under the new system. I presume all the bugs will have been worked out by then. Educating the public is always the hard part of this kind of change. You may have seen some billboards around town advertising the switchover – see here for more about them – or you can visit OneSticker.net for more about how things work now. Anyone got a story to tell? Dallas Transportation has more.

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