For once, a DMV computer glitch that saves money

Well, some people around here sure are lucky — namely those whose vehicle registrations expired as of July 1 or are set to expire before Oct. 31.

Due to the city’s computer system not being ready, all those folks are getting a reprieve from the new annual state vehicle registration fee that increased to $45 from $25 and the vehicle weight tax that increased by as much as 100 percent, topping out at $300 for vehicles weighing more than 10,000 pounds.

The city runs the vehicle registration system for all the counties, so the reprieve applies to people statewide.

Too bad we all can’t get in on it, but let’s at least hope that the higher revenues, once they start getting collected, will be directed to the purpose for which they were intended: highway maintenance.

Statistics by the score: new Data Book is online

When the statistician Robert Schmitt wrote his first State of Hawaii Data Book in 1962, he did so without Excel spreadsheets or PDFs or personal computers. Even so, his project has proved more enduring than any technology. The 2010 edition of his brainchild is now available online, with some 800 tables of updated statistical information available to anyone at www.hawaii.gov/dbedt.

We hope that Schmitt’s devotion to presenting accurate, timely and reliable data is imbued in the current edition. Because there may be nothing so persuasive — and possibly dangerous — as someone with an argument, and armed with statistics.