Starting in October, drivers no longer will receive date-punched stickers to prove that a car has been inspected and to remind them when next year's checkup is due.

The state Division of Motor Vehicles is replacing the stickers with an online system and new rules that are supposed to give the agency more power to make drivers keep their cars running safe and burning clean.

Under current rules, most cars and trucks have two separate DMV deadlines each year -- a safety and emissions inspection due one month, and a registration renewal due another month.

Some drivers have a hard time keeping track of two dates, and DMV enforcement is uneven.

Out of 3 million cars and trucks subject only to safety inspection rules, just 81 percent comply with the law. For the 4 million vehicles that are supposed to get both emissions and safety checkups, the compliance rate is 94 percent.

With the approval of the General Assembly, DMV is changing the rules to require that car owners get inspections before they can renew their registrations or buy new license tags.

After the changes are phased in over the next two years, every car will have a single deadline date each year for inspection and registration -- with inspection coming first.

Some cars will go as long as 23 months between their last inspection on the old system and their first inspection under the new, synchronized schedule.

Take, for example, a car now due for inspection in November and registration in March. After passing inspection in November 2008 and getting a new registration in March 2009, the car's next inspection and registration deadline will be March 2010.

"It's a better way of doing business," said Gordon Zeigler, who oversees DMV's inspection program. "The consumer has one compliance date they're looking at. They get the vehicle inspected, and then they can go get it registered."

Zeigler hopes to boost the inspection compliance rate to 98 percent.

For the state's 7,000 inspection stations, the change will end the chore of going to a DMV office to buy inspection stickers.

"I won't have to do that legwork," said Rocky Tew, who owns Taylor's Capital Service Station on Hillsborough Street in downtown Raleigh.

"If it works like they say, it will be easier for me -- except for explaining it to the customer. When you pick up the car, you won't have a sticker now. I just took it off."

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