Were I inclined to dabble on the dark side, I might try bootlegging Pennsylvania state inspection stickers. I understand it’s a lucrative trade, with stickers fetching as much as $800 on the black market.
This knowledge was imparted to me Wednesday while I waited for the diagnosis on the rear driver’s side tire on my wife’s car, which has a slow leak that has haunted her, and by extension me, for months.
When I say slow leak, I’m talking losing about two PSI a day. The good folks at the Westwood Monro found the offending object, a broken, aluminum looking nail or screw, that had impaled the tread.
While I waited for the repair, the guy at the order desk, another patron and I came to discuss inspection stickers.
It didn’t start out about stickers, but instead was a matter of general agreement that the Monro phone answering system, which places an intermediary between you and the store you would like to visit, leaves a lot to be desired.
The conversation then swung to the general subject of inspections and the trade in fake stickers.
Allow me to talk a bit of inspection history. In my youth, cars were required to be inspected twice a year, a biannual cause of consternation for many in my family, who drove cars that were on the far end of their lifespans.
Admittedly, the good news was we didn’t have emissions inspections back then to sideline weak and infirm cars.
But, getting cars checked twice a year for safety was a bit of a pain and this prompted some to pass on it all, taking their chances.
It also gave rise to a class of garage known as “paper hangers” for their willingness to put an inspection sticker on just about anything with four wheels – for a price.
The state frowned on this, as you might expect, and the paper hangers didn’t tend to be around for years at a time.
Along the way, we’ve dropped safety inspections to once a year, but with the added burden of the aforementioned emissions. We’re not yet California on this matter, but we’re headed that way.
I once knew a guy who drew and colored – by hand – a fake inspection sticker, propped it into place on the windshield of his pickup truck using gloves on the dashboard, and drove around merrily.
Alas, it all turned bad when he attracted the attention of the gendarmes for wearing a bulletproof vest (under a black raincoat) into WalMart. When those gendarmes walked him to his truck, they were not amused by the faux sticker and so the vehicle was towed.
If this guy were around today, and in the market, apparently he could get a more realistic bootleg sticker for the aforementioned $800.
The woman patron at Monro today had heard a story of an arrest in Pennsylvania earlier this year and I did some internet research when I got home.
Yes, a story from January 2025 confirmed an interception by the good folks of U.S. Customs and Border Protection of two shipments of fake inspection stickers from Israel and bound for Philadelphia. A value of more than $1.4 million was put on the total of approximately 22,000 stickers.
Drug dealers, eat your hearts out.
Now, if only we could get PennDOT to stop issuing commercial drivers licenses to illegal immigrants.
That, my friends, is a bigger story than scofflaws bootlegging inspection stickers.
Sam Ross Jr's site 