Editor’s Note: A guest post from state representative Larry Bagley (R-Shreveport), the author of a bill which would repeal the requirement for personal vehicles to have state-issued inspection stickers which will be heard in the House Transportation, Highways, and Public Works Committee on Monday.

Considering that only 11 other states require vehicle inspection stickers, we can conclude that inspection stickers are NOT the pre-requisite for safer roads. In reality, they are nothing more than a snapshot.

Let’s say you just got an inspection sticker. As you’re pulling out of the inspection station, your blinker goes out. The inspection sticker did nothing to guarantee that your car maintains legal standards. You could drive without a blinker for 2 years before you’d be forced to fix it in order to get a new inspection sticker. The State Trooper that’ll pull you over and write you a ticket for an inoperable blinker is what forces you to fix your blinker.

Because inspection stickers only serve to waste your time, I authored House Bill 546 to remove this burden and make our roads safer. Commercial vehicles and school buses would still be required to get their inspection stickers, but your personal vehicle would not. But how does this make our roads safer?

Under the current inspection sticker scheme, $1.25 goes to the DMV, $4.75 goes to our State Troopers, and $4.00 goes to the inspection station. When HB 546 becomes law and you no longer need to spend time getting a sticker slapped on your windshield, the $10 per year that you did pay for an inspection sticker will be added to your license plate renewal. The $4.00 that went to the service station, will now be allocated to hiring more State Troopers. I’ve been told that this will result in an estimated new 115 State Troopers.

What I’ve done is better fund our law enforcement without costing you any more money. In fact, this saves you time and is revenue neutral for you. To me, this is just common-sense and fulfills the ultimate goal that we should all have: safer roads for us and our family.

If you want to better fund our law enforcement and agree that inspection stickers are ineffective and a waste of your time, I need you to call your legislators and ask them to support HB 546. Ask them to support common-sense reforms.