Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 7, 1994 TAG: 9406070075
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY REED
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Why can't they give us a sticker that's easier to put on and take off, or at least let us put them some place that's easier to reach?|
|J.B. & W.R., Roanoke
A: Until a couple of years ago, Roanoke had easy-peeling decals that made stealing easy, especially in tough economic times.
The city was in tough times too, and switched to a stickier decal to gather more revenue. The number of decal thefts reported to police dropped from the 200 range in 1990 and '91 to about 150 per year.
Outright theft isn't the only scam operating here, though. Officials have caught dozens of people who own two or three cars in the act of buying a single decal - and using it on whichever vehicle they drive on a given day. All this to avoid paying another $20 or $40.
The problem is worse in larger metropolitan areas. Curtis Merritt of M&W Printers in Lynchburg sells decals to two-thirds of Virginia cities and counties and knows everybody's problems with them.
Merritt finds the localities in Northern Virginia need security decals that bring the word "void" into view if someone tampers with them. Some counties order decals with slits that tear when removed.
All the valley localities except Roanoke have ordered the superglued model since the decal business began. Marsha Fielder, the city's commissioner of revenue, suspects that part of this year's resentment is caused by the city's change to sticker conformity.
Her office gets more reports of stolen decals than the Police Department does - 300 last year.
There's a new wrinkle this season: Many people complained that they never received their decals in the mail.
Those 300 stolen decals account for $6,000 in lost revenue, and Fielder can only wonder about stickers that are reported to have disappeared by accident.
Concerning the positioning of decals, Virginia State Police say the only legal place is one-quarter inch to the right of the state inspection sticker at the bottom of the windshield.
Removing a thick-gummed sticker from that spot is a job - though not a really difficult one for people in good health.
Merritt jokingly says these complaints have given him an idea for a sideline business: decal removal kits.|
Day-Day|
Q: In all the media coverage of D-Day, I never saw an explanation of what the D stood for. What does it mean?|
|Several readers A: D stands for "day." Fully spelled out it would be Day-Day. That's the military way. The time, 6:30 a.m., when the invasion began was H-Hour.|
An ideal voice|
Q: Whose voice says "Welcome to Bell Atlantic" when I call 411?|
|D.D., Roanoke A: That accent-free enunciation in dulcet tone is provided by James Earl Jones, the actor who also appears in the Yellow Pages commercials. The phone company's public relations department provided the identification.|
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by CNB