Sticker Shock

It was a pleasure to remove the Commonwealth of Massachusetts registry inspection sticker from the windshield of my caah yesterday.

Massachusetts requires a vehicle inspection every year, which includes safety and emissions checks, at a fee of $35 for most passengers vehicles and $15 for motorcycles.

I can’t help feel this is just another way for Mass to impose an additional fee/tax, a.k.a. money grab, from the state just passing it off as in the best interest of safety and for the environment -

Failure to have a valid current year inspection sticker could hit you in the wallet even more with tickets if pulled over by the police. These stickers are color coded based per year so easily noticeable if expired.

The premise makes sense, especially the safety aspect but yearly is a bit much, as are the penalty fees if caught with an expired sticker.

It’s more pronounced when you see what other states do or don’t do when it comes to vehicle safety and emission checks, e.g. Tennessee does not have such a program.

Now I’ve seen very questionable vehicles on the road here in East Tennessee that would NO way pass both safety and emission checks. 

I understand the premise, just not the fees behind it. That being said, I’m pleased to no longer need to do this!