Mandatory Safety Inspections: Easier Said Than Done

By Aaron Lowe

The Car Care Council estimates that there is over $62 million in unperformed maintenance on motor vehicles every year. There could be a myriad of reasons that people choose not to have needed work performed on their car, whether it’s to save money, time or simply ignorance as to the maintenance that should be undertaken on their vehicle. Not only do vehicle service facilities lose potential revenue, but the absence of maintenance is likely going to take years off the life of a car and maybe, more importantly, could be endangering the safety of the driver and those with whom they share the road.

The absence of good maintenance practices by car owners was likely one of the key reasons that many states began mandating that cars obtain yearly safety inspection, known as Periodic Motor Vehicle Safety Inspections (PMVI). While many in the vehicle repair industry see PMVI as a great program benefiting their business and the public, car owners do not always share this view. In fact, the current state of PMVI programs would leave one to wonder if safety inspection is heading for extinction unless something is done soon.

PMVI began as a voluntary program in Massachusetts, New York and Maryland in the mid to late 1920s and became mandatory in 1929. In 1966, Congress passed the Highway Safety Act, which included a provision that made vehicle safety inspection a required element of each state’s highway safety program. By 1968, 31 states and the District of Columbia had programs that required car owners to have their vehicle safety systems inspected on a yearly basis.

In 1973, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration established vehicle-in-use standards and states risked losing highway funds for not establishing a complying safety inspection program. This is when things began to fall apart.

The program standards for safety inspection that were promulgated by NHTSA were considered pretty weak. Many states, unhappy with the burden being placed on them to establish safety programs, put in place ineffective programs. Perceiving that the inspections were both inconvenient and ineffective, the public called on their local elected officials to eliminate them. In 1976, Congress gave in to the public dissatisfaction with safety inspection and eliminated the ability of NHTSA to take away highway money from states that failed to implement a safety inspection program. With the federal pressure off, many states shed their safety inspection program. Now, according to the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, only 16 states have programs, and four of those states have gone to inspections every two years. Further, there are serious efforts every year in some states to get rid of the programs.

Why are inspections so unpopular with the public and therefore politicians? There are probably two main reasons: They are inconvenient and most people do not see the benefits to them or to highway safety. In fact, until recently there was little available data demonstrating the correlation between safety inspection and improved safety. Further, many of the programs that have been in place have been poorly operated and inconvenient. Nothing can kill a program faster than those long lines at an inspection station at the end of the month.

However, information has recently been developed that appears to show a correlation between safety inspections and reduced highway fatalities. The Department of Transportation for Pennsylvania completed a report in March of last year that showed very clearly the importance of safety inspections to saving lives on the Nation’s highways. The report, which was undertaken by Cambridge Systematics, Inc., came to the conclusion that Pennsylvania’s — as well as other vehicle safety inspection programs — are an effective way to reduce fatal crashes and save lives. Specifically:

• Nationally, vehicle safety inspection programs appear to be a significant factor in lowering fatal crashes.

• Based on the model results, Pennsylvania can be expected to have between 115 and 169 fewer fatal crashes each year, corresponding to between 127 and 187 fewer fatalities each year, than it would if it did not have a vehicle safety inspection program.

• The largest difference in reported vehicle failures at the scene of fatal crashes between states with programs and states without programs is for vehicles of three years of age or more.

• The combination of state-level and county-level analysis of fatality data provides consistent and complementary results.

However, changing the dynamics in this country to improve the image of safety inspection and hopefully increase the number programs is going to take a lot more than one study. For starters, motorists are going to have to see a major benefit from safety inspection and be willing to support it both at the federal, state and local levels. This will be no easy task and will require a major effort by industry along with state and local authorities who, by the way, are not strong proponents in many states. A key element will be making the actual inspections more efficient. This means that the time it takes to inspect a vehicle will have to be optimized and locations where drivers can obtain the inspections are going to have to grow. At the same time, the programs cannot afford to be perceived as ineffective. No doubt improvements in inspection technology will need to be implemented to help the industry and states meet these seemingly competing goals.

Every year, I hear from members that safety inspection is something the industry can get behind and we should be working together to make it happen. However, I always warn them that changing the tide on this issue is not going to be easy and will require considerable time and funds to make it happen. It also will require industry and government consensus that this needs to be done and how it should be accomplished — not an easy task in today’s highly charged political environment. However, with the possible economic and public safety benefits that could result from more PMVI programs, perhaps it is worth a second look.

AARON LOWE is vice president of Government Affairs for the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association. For more information on government affairs initiatives, visit: www.aftermarket.org