NC legislative leaders vow to extend vehicle inspection deadlines retroactively
Car and truck owners don’t have to worry about getting their annual safety and emissions testing during the coronavirus outbreak after all.
That’s the message from legislative leaders on Thursday. Senate Leader Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore released a statement saying that when the General Assembly convenes later this month they support legislation that would retroactively extend vehicle inspection deadlines.
“Until such legislation passes, we support bureaucratic flexibility on compliance with the existing deadlines,” Berger and Moore wrote. “Based on our communications with the Executive Branch, we understand that the Department of Public Safety and State Highway Patrol are doing just that by not prioritizing enforcement.”
The General Assembly is not scheduled to be in session until April 28.
The deadlines for renewing licenses and vehicle registrations are set by state law. Gov. Roy Cooper and the N.C. Department of Transportation say they don’t have the power to extend those deadlines or waive fees and fines for not complying, which has forced people to get inspections even as the state has ordered them to stay home.
Transportation Secretary Eric Boyette this week asked lawmakers to give the DMV commissioner power to extend expiration dates and waive fees and fines “for a variety of licenses and requirements,” including driver’s licenses, during a natural disaster such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
The statement from Berger and Moore referred to vehicle inspections, but delaying those would also stop registrations. The DMV’s computer system won’t allow someone to renew their registration without a completed inspection, said spokesman Steve Abbott.
“It’s all one process,” Abbott said.
Patrick Ryan, Berger’s spokesman, said legislators will look at extending other DMV deadlines when the legislation is actually written. For now, Ryan said, they want to signal to North Carolina residents that if they don’t feel comfortable getting their car or truck inspected during the pandemic, they shouldn’t worry about getting penalized for it.
“I think we’re all on the same page there,” Ryan said.
Car and truck owners in all 100 counties are required to get an annual safety inspection before renewing their registration. In 22 mostly urban counties, owners must also get an emissions test.
Owners who don’t get an inspection by the end of the month it is due are automatically assessed a $15 late fee, Abbott said. Those fees would have to be retroactively waived by the General Assembly along with the extended deadlines.
The DMV has closed more than half of its driver’s license offices and is seeing customers by appointment only at the ones that remain open. Boyette told lawmakers that DMV will need more employees and extended hours to handle a backlog of license business when the stay-at-home orders are lifted.
Abbott said there will also likely be pent-up demand for inspections as well.
“The inspection stations will probably get a rush of business,” he said.
This story was originally published April 9, 2020 at 1:09 PM with the headline "NC legislative leaders vow to extend vehicle inspection deadlines retroactively."
