As I write this, it’s Friday during lent. All around Louisiana today you can get a good seafood meal at a Catholic church nearby. As a Southern Baptist, I don’t feel obliged to give anything up for lent. However, I sure hope when the Louisiana Legislature comes back into session on March 9th they get around to giving up the inspection sticker for vehicles in Louisiana. If they want to say they gave it up for Lent to campaign back home, I’m cool with it. If for some reason the bill must move after Easter that’s fine with me too. Just get it done.

I don’t mind them moving the $20 every two years fee onto vehicle registration. I just sent the $24 check into the Louisiana Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) because it was due at the end of March. If that goes up to $44 for this to happen, I really don’t care. A simple swap here is fine. Even in the worst-case scenario that I need to write two different checks, one for $24 the DMV and one for $10 or $20 to Louisiana State Police (who get some of the $ from the inspection sticker I’ve heard) in the same bill, I’m good with that too. If the fact the Louisiana State Police get the whole $10 or $20 instead just a piece of it, helps pass the bill and allows them to pay for more state troopers, or extra troop costs in New Orleans, that’s lagniappe.

I know it costs more than $10 for a one-year sticker or $20 for a 2 year-sticker of labor for the state approved places that do vehicle inspection stickers to do the inspection so I’m pretty sure it’s not the inspection sites clamoring for this. Just to write down all those numbers from my insurance card, driver’s license, vehicle registration, reporting, and carry whatever liability comes along with doing that probably costs more than $10 easily. I also know they don’t get the whole $10 or $20. I’m glad I at least got to say hi to one of my Pastor friends whose family owns the business in Clayton that I get this done every 2 years but I’m sure I could easily find a different way to say hello to him and his employee who took care of the details of the inspection.

I’m thankful one of the auto glass places in Vidalia had a used but perfect auto glass piece for my vehicle yesterday to take care of the repair so I could pass my inspection. (Yes, I did need a new windshield to pass inspection, the fact that it was used saved me $100) Most auto glass repair and vehicle repair shops are too busy these days fixing cars with genuine problems to come down to Baton Rouge to lobby so I don’t think it’s them holding this up. It took calls into multiple auto glass places before I knew where I could lose my Thursday afternoon to get my new used auto glass fixed in Vidalia and almost had to go across state lines to Mississippi to get it done.

I know this is not the most burning issue in Baton Rouge when the legislature meets. I’ve written about some of those in the past.

However, it’s one of the annoying issues that needs to get fixed to make life simpler for those of us that live here.