Computer bug strikes early at emissions program

Inspection stations using outdated software give motorists a preview of the kind of problem not expected until 2000.

By JOHN WAGNER, Staff Writer

After getting his Toyota station wagon inspected at a Jiffy Lube in Cary last month, Wolfgang Kohlrausch glanced down at his receipt and was startled by what he saw: His next state-mandated emissions inspection, the printout said, is due in 1910. "That was 89 years ago," Kohlrausch mused. Hundreds of motorists across North Carolina have been caught in a similar time warp in recent months. The culprit: an early appearance by the Year 2000 computer bug. According to the state Division of Motor Vehicles, 270 emissions stations -- including 89 in the Triangle -- were still using the computer software responsible for the botched receipts as of May 1. Like other Y2K miscues, the problem stems from an old programming shortcut: using just two digits to represent the year. That worked fine in the past, but calculations made with a "00" -- shorthand for 2000 -- can go haywire. The glitch in the DMV emissions program is one of the first state government services to be affected by the Y2K bug. As the millennium approaches, officials are working feverishly to avoid similar snafus in hundreds of other services, such as tax collections, welfare benefits and agricultural licenses. DMV spokesman Jon Parks said the 1910 problem should probably be a thing of the past after this week. DMV is mandating that all inspection stations switch to a new computer system for reasons unrelated to the Year 2000 problem. DMV currently requires annual emissions tests in nine mostly urban counties, including Wake, Durham and Orange. Tests are performed at privately owned stations, and the results are reported back to the state. Parks said that in past years, stations had four choices of software for their emissions-analyzing systems. Y2K problems have surfaced with one of the four. "It's 10-year-old software, and it's well, well beyond its use," he said. While the bungled receipts may cause some confusion, they shouldn't lead to larger problems, DMV officials say. Motorists are still getting stickers for their windshields with the correct due date for their next inspection. And the due date that appears on motorists' receipts is really just "a courtesy date," Parks said. It not used by DMV to identify people whose inspections are overdue, he said. If that were the case, DMV computers would assume that Kohlrausch was 89 years overdue for his inspection -- which could lead to a hefty fine and other headaches. Officials at the state Commerce Department, which is monitoring the state's Y2K conversions, offer the following explanation of the bad math behind the botched receipts: When Kohlrausch went to Jiffy Lube for his inspection last month, the computer took the current year, 99, and added 1 to determine the year his next inspection is due. The result was a three-digit number: 100. The computer, however, was equipped to read only a two-digit year, and stored the "1" and "0." On the receipt, as in years past, the century -- "19" -- automatically printed out. Only the last two digits of the year had to be calculated -- or in this case, miscalculated -- and tacked on. The result: 1910.

-- regular (zzz@z.z), May 26, 1999

Answers

Well, as we used to say as children, "You made me look." I recently had my car inspected here in Texas. The Vehicle Inspection Report has NO indication of this "courtesy" date. It simply states when I had the car tested. I DO notice, however, that where last year's vehicle inspection report stated mm/dd/yy for the test date, THIS year it states mm/dd/ccyy followed by the time. Last year the time was on a separate line. [I guess I can throw away that old one, eh?]

Anita

-- Anita Spooner (spoonera@msn.com), May 26, 1999.