A common, but often over-looked crime in the St. Louis area is the theft of those little license plate stickers. Sure, most people are pissed, but not bleeding when they realize they’ve been victimized, so it’s not exactly at the top of everyone’s mind, but estimations are that the sticker theft costs the state of Missouri around $10 Million every year. That’s a lot. Like “turn out the lights and lets do this thing…no kissing though” a lot. Oh like you didn’t do stuff for money in college!
Rep. Denison estimated more than 5,000 stickers were stolen, just from vehicles in the City of St. Louis in 2009; 3,000 in the Springfield area; tens of thousands state wide. He said going to windshield stickers like New York and Texas, would allow Missouri to recoup $10 – $12 million in registration fees and sales taxes that people avoid paying now by using stolen stickers.
“They put them on the inside of the windshield (in Texas) and it stopped the theft,” he said.
Perfect! As everyone who’s parked downtown for any length of time at night knows, you definitely can’t break a windshield! You also can’t just use a tool like a razor blade to get at the precious stickers any more, you’ll need a more sophisticated and harder to find tool…like a rock.
via Fox2
