Investigation: Drivers Dipping Into Cheaper Fuel Reserve

If your gas tank is full, most likely, fuel prices has your wallet on empty.
 
The cost is crippling to most, but News Channel 7 found some people driving cheap by shortchanging the state, and at taxpayers' expense.
   
“Where you normally get your fuel at?” asks State Transport Police Officer Corporal V. B. Rutland. The agency looks for drivers illegally using off- road fuel at weigh stations through out the state. It's diesel fuel, dyed red, that is about 40 cents cheaper per gallon than regular fuel. To maintain state roads, you pay about 40 cents in road tax for each gallon your vehicle guzzles.  
 
Farm tractors, and other off-road vehicles, use dyed fuel, but Rutland says everyone who fills up with it--- isn’t exactly driving a John Deere.
 
"Do you carry red fuel in the truck with you?” asks Rutland to the owner of a lawn care business in Anderson County. 
 
Timothy Ramsey quickly says, “No."
 
A quick inspection of Ramsey’s truck in March finds dyed fuel. Test results later confirm the officer's suspicion.
 
Ramsey says there’s no violation in his eye, despite a slight red tent in his fuel.
 
An On Your Side Investigation found Ramsey's violation is part of an increasing trend of drivers shortchanging the state in search for cheaper fuel. We dug through two years worth of violation records from the Department of Revenue. From 2006 to 2007, fines increased 179.3%.

Info Box
Title: Dyed Fuel By the Numbers



2005: 17 violations written; however, the inspection program was suspended after Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005.

Inspections resumed in January 2006.

Watch video of the confrontation

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Some are repeat offenders, like Palmetto State Construction in Greenville. The Department of Revenue fined it $2,000 for illegally using dyed fuel in February 2007. Click Here to download a list of violations in the upstate.
 
Employee Ruth Bagwell didn’t want us getting video outside the business or asking her any questions, “It's pretty bad that this is all that you can get on the news,” she said. And, how about an explanation? Bagwell responded, “I don't owe you an explanation of anything. You're not the law. All I owe you is a black eye.”Watch video of the confrontation by clicking play on the video player below and to the left.
 
DOR started its dyed diesel fuel enforcement program in 2000. While it's an unfamiliar tax violation to most, those who illegally use dyed fuel hurt all drivers, “We use the highways and that money goes into the state highway fund, so they're actually taking away from the state highway fund, which is used to pave roads, build bridges. So, it hurts all of South Carolina taxpayers when they circumvent the law and use off road fuel,” says DOR spokesperson Adrienne Farewell.
 
Farewell says dyed fuel violations increased dramatically for two reasons: better enforcement and higher fuel prices.
 
Upstate farmers, like R.D. Morrison, legally use dyed fuel. He doesn’t have any sympathy for violators, “If they'd make that fine like $20,000, it would give them an incentive not to break the law. And that's what they're doing, they're breaking the law!”
 
DOR does not know exactly how much revenue is lost each year from dyed fuel violators. The department says it’s very difficult to catch drivers, and dyed fuel is not a top priority to State Transport Police. 
 
Fines are $1,000 per violation, and it doubles for repeat offenders. Last year, the DOR cited at least $92,000 in fines related to dyed fuel violations.

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