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RALEIGH - It sounds like a bad vaudeville joke: I'm telling ya, folks, gas is so expensive.

"How expensive is it?" yells the audience.

So expensive not even the gas pump computers can calculate the price right.

No kidding.

Mainly, this issue involves older-style pumps that work with gears and dials, rather than newer pumps with digital readouts, according to industry representatives.

So the Department of Agriculture on Tuesday has proposed a regulation that would allow certain gas stations - those that sell less than 600,000 gallons a year - to ring up sales at half price on the pump but charge full price at the register. Right now, only stations that sell less than 60,000 gallons per year can do this.

The expanded use of what's called half-pricing would go into effect Nov. 1.

But stations would have to upgrade their equipment by 2011, when the rule sunsets.

Doug Howey, a lobbyist for the N.C. Petroleum and Convenience Marketers, said some pumps at older stations simply can't handle prices that are more than $4 a gallon.

They can be retrofitted, but the parts are expensive and hard to come by.

"It's more in the rural areas, small mom-and-pop stores, that will have these," Howey said.

Gas stations would still have to advertise their prices in full gallons on display signs.

And a pump charging in half gallons would have to be marked with a sign that says, "Caution: Due to a shortage of computer parts this dispenser indicates only 1/2 the total sale price."

But others say the measure could enrage drivers.

"It's going to confuse motorists who are already mad about the increasing price of gas," said Tom Crosby, a spokesman for AAA Carolinas.

Although there will have to be signs, Crosby said, people don't always pay attention to all the verbiage on the gas pump.

"People are going to be misled," Crosby said.

Officials with the Department of Agriculture, which oversees gas pump regulation, did not return calls Tuesday afternoon.

It's unclear how many stations would be affected by the proposed rule.

Contact Mark Binker at(919) 832-5549 or mark.binker@news-record.com