New NC laws in 2009

Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Starting Thursday, North Carolina state employees can no longer light up inside state-owned or leased vehicles, as the new year brings more than a dozen new state laws into effect.

Other new laws will require motorists to get insurance to cover a crash with an uninsured motorist and will give them more time to fix problems if their vehicles fail annual inspection requirements.

Tougher rules covering how hog waste is collected and disposed also begin Thursday.

The smoking ban inside state-operated vehicles is the latest tobacco restriction within North Carolina’s government. A year ago, thousands of state government buildings became smoke-free. Smoking also has been banned in recent years inside prisons and adult care and nursing homes.

Despite North Carolina’s tobacco heritage, state workers appear to be taking the latest prohibition in stride, said Jill Lucas, a spokeswoman for the Department of Administration, which maintains a fleet of more than 8,600 state vehicles.

“I don’t know if the culture of smoking has changed so much in recent years that people (already) don’t smoke in their private car or in their private home,” Lucas said. “People who smoke are accustomed to these kind of expectations, and now it’s going to be law.”

Supporters argued the law will protect passengers from secondhand smoke and cut down on car cleaning expenses. City and county governments also will have authority to approve similar motor-fleet restrictions.

The Administration Department ordered 20,000 “no smoking” stickers to place in cars. Violating the rule isn’t considered a criminal offense.

Drivers who lack insurance to cover a crash with an uninsured motorist now will have to obtain that coverage the next time their policies are renewed.

About 5 percent of the drivers who operate the state’s roughly 7 million private passenger vehicles currently don’t have the coverage. They will have to pay another $17 per year in premiums, on average, for the minimum coverage required by the law, according to Kristin Milam with the state Department of Insurance.

Until now the law allowed a motorist to waive uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage.

Vehicle owners whose cars don’t pass their annual safety and emissions inspections will receive another 60 days to fix any problems without paying another inspection fee, instead of the previous 30-day window.

New swine operations or farms that add hogs must meet more stringent rules to prevent waste spills and reduce pollution and odors.

Lawmakers ordered the environment standards in a landmark 2007 law that phases out the lagoons that store hog waste that’s later sprayed on fields. The law made permanent a decade-old ban on creating these open pits at the state’s 2,200 swine facilities.

Farmers seeking a permit to build new operations will need to show their waste disposal systems will dramatically reduce ammonia and pathogens entering the air, said Christine Blanton, a state Division of Water Quality environmental engineer. Waste storage containers must have alarms that automatically phone the farm owner or manager when waste rises dangerously close to the rim.

Another new law also taking effect Thursday begins requiring mortgage servicers to be registered with the state Banking Commissioner. The regulation of servicers, who collect mortgage and escrow payments from homeowners and make payments on their behalf, is one of many controls North Carolina has placed on the mortgage industry over the past decade.