D.C. Drops Vehicle Safety Inspections; Should Others Follow?
With state and local governments feeling the budget pinch in a still-struggling economy, lawmakers are looking for programs to trim. Washington, D.C., recently announced it would discontinue its periodic vehicle safety inspections.
The D.C. council noted a lack of any data showing periodic inspections made for safer roads. It expects an annual savings of $400,000 by eliminating the program.
There are 19 states that require safety inspections for vehicles, but the efficacy of these programs has often come under dispute, especially when considering the cost.
Pennsylvania, for instance, conducts 11 million inspections a year at a cost of around $300 million. The state only pays $1.5 million of that with the rest coming from car owners who shell out $16-$23 per inspection. Pennsylvania commissioned a study this year that determined the inspections save roughly 125 lives a year.
While having a mechanic tell you your brakes are faulty could prevent an accident, these programs are politically unpopular. That's probably the reason Congress in 1976 took away the U.S. Transportation Department’s authority to withhold highway funds from states without inspection programs.
Other than the Pennsylvania study, there is little data to prove that inspections improve safety on America’s roads.
University of Dayton economics professor Marc Poitras conducted a 2002 study of the cost-effectiveness of inspection programs and came to the conclusion that the true “tip-off” is that insurance companies don’t care about inspections.
"If inspections were effective,” he told USA Today, “then insurance companies would study these things and be on the lookout for data that would prove they lower costs."
D.C. Junks Car Safety Inspections: Will Others, Too? (USA Today)
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Some states do it for the rust factor.Try to find any 1970s or 1980s car still alive in NH......they almost all rusted away.
these programs mostly hurt the poor, but don't they do this sort of thing for the environment too? for instance, mufflers are big in NY, but you never see a muffler place/commercial here in florida.
Safety inspection is a way to mechanics to rip off people. But something must be there in place to assure that people don't ride on bald tires
Did they drop the emissions testing then as well?
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