Violators' indifference or avoidance may not only be leaving cars on the road with broken blinkers, bad brakes or a silent horn, it also is costing state coffers and businesses who perform the inspections millions in lost revenue.

"I couldn't say how much because we don't keep track of how many people haven't (updated)," said Mississippi Highway Patrol Lt. Ed Nelson, who is in charge of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety's Motor Vehicle Inspection program.

In 2008, Mississippi had issued regular license plates or vanity tags to more than 2.6 million vehicles, according to figures from the Mississippi State Tax Commission.

Nelson said MDPS sold about 1.5 million inspection stickers in 2008, collecting about $3 million, money that is funneled into Mississippi's general fund.

That would leave more than 1.1 million vehicles - about 42 percent - that did not update inspection stickers that year. That means the state not only missed out on about $2.2 million in fees, but another $3.6 million went uncollected that would have been dispersed among the inspection businesses statewide.

Nelson said the state also collected about another $900,000 on window tint inspections. The state requires that tint can be no darker than 28 percent. The split for those inspections has $3 going to the state and $2 remaining with shop. That means about 3,000 tint inspections were done in 2008.