BATON ROUGE — A bill to eliminate Louisiana's vehicle safety inspection stickers was driven out of the House Transportation Committee Monday after the author said most inspections are a ruse anyway.

State Rep. Bagley, R-Stonewall, wants the $10 fee for a one-year inspection sticker to be added to the vehicle registration fee, which he said would fund 150 new Louisiana state troopers.

Members of the House Transportation Committee voted 8-6 to send House Bill 546 to the full House for debate.

Commercial vehicles and school buses would still require inspections. The bill also leaves in place emissions standards inspections in five parishes.

Bagley said most of the inspection stations he's familiar with are a joke.

"My windshield was cracked post to post and I was still able to get an inspection sticker," Bagley said.

Inspection station personnel are supposed to inspect vehicles for safety from cracked windshields that would inhibit vision to headlights to tinted windows.

But Bagley said in his experience the process takes no more than 5 minutes.

"They just scrape the old one off and put the new one on," he said.

Some other members of the committee chimed in to confirm Bagely's assessment.

Rep. Terry Brown, independent-Colfax, said he knows someone who drives a jalopy that's had a cracked windshield for 10 years.

"And it has an up-to-date inspection sticker," Brown said.

"The inspection stickers are not working," Bagley said.

He said vehicles and drivers will be safer when there are more troopers to patrol the highways.

But House Transportation Committee Chairman Terry Landry, D-New Iberia, a former Louisiana State Police superintendent, disagreed.

"I argue that there is a safety value in the inspection stickers," Landry said.

Landry said even if inspections of the actual vehicles are lax at isolated stations, the process does check for a valid driver's license, registration and proof of insurance.

An inspection station owner also testified against the bill, saying it will put her out of business. She also said many vehicles fail her inspections.

Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1