ALBANY – The state is in sticker shock.
Millions of registration stickers issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles won’t stay affixed to motorists’ windshields, as required by law.
This, even though the state changed vendors in 1998 after a similar problem frustrated motorists across the Empire State.
The state pays Standard Register, of Middlebury, Vt., $30,000 a year to produce registration stickers that can be affixed to windshields.
There’s no way to know just how many are defective, but Standard Register recently agreed to provide the state with 4 million new ones at no cost.
The Post spot-checked two dozen cars recently and found that the stickers on almost half were not adhering to the windshields.
Joe Picchi, a DMV spokesman, said part of the problem is the information provided on the stickers.
New York is one of the few states that requires registration stickers to carry the make of the car and its vehicle-identification number. The idea is to make it easier for police to spot stolen cars.
Picchi says that when local DMV officials run the stickers through a laser printer to insert the information, the glue loses some of its adhesiveness.
Two years ago, when the state switched to Standard Register, officials said an adhesive had been developed to withstand the heat of the lasers.
Apparently they were wrong.
“We’ve spoken with Standard Register and told them this is not acceptable,” Picchi said. “We want a better product.”
The company in recent months has redesigned the stickers, using different paper and adhesive, Picchi said.
Since January, about 2 million of the improved stickers have been issued to the public.
But James Sterman, a Buffalo resident who was fined $20 because his sticker came loose and was on his dashboard instead of his windshield, said he’s having problems with one of the new stickers.
Representatives of Standard Register did not return calls for comment.