Fees

==Fees ==
Is there inequity with PennDOT's charging the same $36 fee for small passenger cars as gas-guzzling, oversize SUVs and vans that can seat up to 15 people?
Tom Kanhofer, of Allison Park, pointed out that a 2 1/2-ton Chevrolet TrailBlazer, an SUV, won the 2002 North American Truck of the Year award at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
"The majority of SUVs in Pennsylvania are trucks being licensed as passenger cars," he e-mailed. "If they're a truck, they should be licensed as one" and pay an annual motor vehicle fee several times as much as a regular car.
Because he drives his vehicles less than 5,000 miles a year, he is exempt from Pennsylvania's annual emission inspection. But he pays $10 for an "exempt" sticker on the windshield.
Car owners in 50 of the state's 67 counties are exempt from emission inspections no matter how many miles they drive.
"Why shouldn't owners of those vehicles have to buy the $10 exemption sticker?" he asked. "They could be purchased in conjunction with the annual registration renewals. The state would receive the full $10 fee."
Mr. Kanhofer said making the law equitable for everyone "would raise a lot of badly needed revenue."
Reasonable suggestions fall on deaf ears in Harrisburg.