just saw a news clip on TV. in Memphis all city residents must have their car checked at inspection station once a year and you must pass in order to get your renewal tag sticker. thank God we don't live in that crap hole.

That's another reason I live in the county.  

They don't have to pay their electric bills, either.

The Memphis City Council makes the US Congress seem a center of intelligence and class.

Texas has something like that too. If you fail an emissions test, but it would cost more than some amount to get it fixed, or you are "low income" then you don't have to fix it at all.....

As a nation we spend a significant portion of gas tax dollars on builiding and subsudising public transportation. If the car does not pass inspection, repair the car well enough to pass the test or take the bus/train. If the nation is going to pay for it, the deadbeats shoud be riding in it rather than getting a grace period.

unless you have a friend that can give you a new sticker

They take tin snips and cut the corner off plates that have the new renewal year sticker.

Bullshit...

If a motorist's vehicle has failed an emissions test, the motorist may petition the Director of the DPS for an Individual Vehicle Waiver. The motorist must demonstrate that:

the motorist has taken every reasonable measure to comply with the requirements of the vehicle emissions I/M program contained in the Revised Texas I/M SIP; and
a waiver shall have minimal impact on air quality.
Reasonable measures are considered to be:

Vehicles diagnosed and repaired at any Recognized Repair Facility, qualify to claim the cost of diagnosis, parts and labor.
Vehicles not diagnosed and repaired at Recognized Repair Facility, qualify to claim the cost of parts only.
Vehicles will be visually inspected by a Texas Department of Public Safety representative to insure that emission repairs being claimed have been performed.
For more information contact your local Texas Department of Public Safety Vehicle Inspection office.
Motorist may apply for the Individual Vehicle Waiver each testing cycle.

  Low Income Time Extension
If your vehicle failed the emissions test and your annual income is below the national poverty level, you may be granted a one-year extension.
Motorists may apply for the Low-Income Time Extension every other testing cycle.


These are not easy to get, it's easier to pay a corrupt attendant than take any of these steps.

I miss the "good old days" before everything was computerised.  
Inspection sticker out of date?  Go to the junk yard and "find' one. That took real skill.
Tag out of date?  Same thing. No skill needed.

Being "poor" back then was alot easier.

My POS vehicles would pass inspection, but I was too cheap to pay the $25 to do it.

Well, I'm genuine poor, not welfare and EBT-supported poor so I drive a car too old to have a "check engine" light nor for it to be a part of the inspection.

Or just live in a state that does not make you do mandatory inspections. Just not North Dakota.

Memphis IS a toilet!

Places like Memphis don't need politicians... they need handlers.
 

Ah okay. So our program is a bit different. Has it changed at all or has that always been the case?

AFAIK always been the case, I believe some of the dollar limiting on repairs have gone up though, and the overall CO2 emissions have to be very close to the State passing level.  There are enough shops gambling on not being audited that it kind of makes the whole law pointless.

Oklahoma used to have vehicle inspection stickers , there was two ways to go about getting one for the most part. You could go to a lot of service stations with the worst piece of shit vehicle and say I need to get an inspection sticker and they would scrape the old one off and put the new one on and charge you $6 and down the road you went. No inspection.  The other way was to say you wanted your vehicle inspected, if you did that then the service station would inspected it and fill out the form and if they found something wrong they could not put the new sticker on till you corrected the problem. Guess which method was used most often ?  

Did the service station care for the most part? Not really because they made easy money putting the sticker on the glass for doing nothing at all. If you got the car inspected then they got to sell you a tail light, muffler , tire, fan belt or god knows what else.  All the money made from selling the sticker went straight into the Troopers retirement fund. The sticker in practical terms did nothing for vehicle safety, I am glad the damn things are gone. The one thing they did not do is shrink the size of the Highway Patrol because the highway patrol troop that was dedicated to running and overseeing those inspection stations was absorbed into other functions of the department of public safety. Proof that government never gets smaller.