To say that emissions testing was NEVER needed is a thoroughly ridiculous statement
In my opinion
You want some numbers from a recent year to back up those statements?
Oregon, with no safety inspection, had a vehicular fatality rate of 1.1 deaths per 100 million miles traveled.
Utah, with state safety inspections, had a vehicular fatality rate of .9 deaths per 100 million miles traveled.
I know you can’t arbitrarily put a value on a human life, but .2 deaths per 100 million miles traveled can’t really be worth the untold dollars spent administering, overseeing, and legislating a safety program, not to mention the money spent by drivers trying to license their car and failing an inspection because the e-brake won’t hold in reverse or the power steering hose is seeping.
Also I don’t seem to notice that the roads are littered with broken down, falling apart cars here in WA anymore than they are in states with safety inspections.
There is the ongoing argument that safety inspections lead to less breakdowns, reducing traffic jams, lost productivity, increased resale value of a well-maintained car, etc. I suppose there are people that appreciate that level of intrusion in their lives. I’m not one of them.
In Utah there’s a lot fewer other things to hit…that’d tend to skew those stats a bit.
Well, you might listen to someone from California. Sure. People gst irritated if their car fails, but there is overwhelming support for the standards. They do little to generate revenue for the state since most people just go and get their car fixed if it fails, which isn’t all that often, and no fine is ever collected. Neither the testing nor the repair facilities generate significant money for the state, either.
Lately Cal-EPA has been concentrating on new standards for construction and agricultural equipment and stationary sources. Irrigation pumps are one of the worst pollution sources in the state. Agriculture has been pleading poverty for so many decades when it’s clear agriculture is a huge business here. So they’re finally being forced to modernize. Which makes sense since many of the counties here with thhe worst smog are in the San Joaquin Valley. Spraying of agricultural chemicals is another big source, and just plain fine dust kicked up by equipment. The air down the east side of the Central Valley is just filthy.
“Well, you might listen to someone from California.”
Yeah, let’s emulate the state that is the most creative in finding ways to run itself into the ground.
Maryland does OBD-II scan testing on cars and light trucks newer than 1996 and HD trucks up to 14,000# newer than 2007. Vehicles newer than 2007 up to the years above get tail pipe and gas cap tests. Emissions tests are every two years.
"To say that emissions testing was NEVER needed is a thoroughly ridiculous statement
In my opinion "
Db, I think it’s safe to say that my opinion differs from your opinion. Reduction in emissions were accomplished by mandates to the manufacturers of cars, not by mandated annual bludgeoning of the owners.
I know that the argument to this might be that the owners might have removed emissions equipment, but that happened in a tiny percentage of cars in the early years anyway. The percentage of owners that actually did modify their cars is miniscule, far too low to justify what the states had to put their residents through. In areas that don’t have annual testing, I’d bet that the percentage of people who modify their cars is no different that in those states that have testing.
IMHO emissions testing does not and did not at any time accomplish reduced emissions. Mandates in the manufacture of the vehicles did. Annual checks became, and remain, a revenue source in states that had/have annual emissions inspections.
Yeah I think people buying new cars instead of keeping the old ones rolling had more to do with cutting emissions than any testing program. We are also seeing the reduced revenues for road taxes due to the increased average mileage of the new cars, not because people have stopped driving and started walking. The fleet has been upgraded folks.
Before any emissions testing, the crude emissions controls being installed by the manufacturers were being removed on a wholesale basis…catalytic converters and “smog pumps” were routinely discarded as were EGR valves and filler-neck restrictors were reamed out so leaded fuel nozzles would fit. Parts stores sold 'Filler adapters" to accomplish the same thing…EPA bureaucrats, seeing their efforts falling apart, forced the states to do emissions testing as a way of gaining consumer compliance and eliminating the tampering that had become a nice sideline for many gas stations and repair shops… One man, Vernon Jordon, one of Bill Clintons golfing buddies, started a company called “Envirotest” and the rest is history…
"One man, Vernon Jordon, one of Bill Clintons golfing buddies, started a company called “Envirotest” and the rest is history… "
Follow the money…
Much the same thing happened in the food industry.
Historically, food quality was assured by quality control testing on the end. This was manpower-intensive, with plenty of inspectors sent out to the food producers.
Then the USDA went to Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP). Basically, it had all the food producers come up with an approved plan that, if implemented, would manage the “critical” food-safety steps to have a nice, safe procedure with plenty of fail-safes and redundancy. Along with this, they scaled back inspections: they were putting the effort into “procative” measures, rather than “reactive” ones.
While not without its critics–who term it “Have Another Cup of Coffee and Pray”–HACCP has, by and large, worked. It seems something similar is happening in the auto world (engineer low emissions durability into the product, rather than inspect like crazy after manufacture). I suspect it’s probably more efficient to do it that way.
Caddyman, I respectfully disagree. I have never personally known anyone who removed their emissions equipment in the early years, and I seriously doubt that more than 1 in 1,000 owners removed their emissions equipment. And the state I was living in then had no emissions inspection, so that was not a factor. In the early years, leaned-out carburetors and increased operating temperatures caused many cars to diesel when shut off, and yet I still have never known anyone to remove their emissions equipment.
I know that it’s generally accepted that some people removed their equipment, but in looking at my own actual experiences I have to believe it’s largely legend.
I posit the question to the others here that owned cars in the early '70s, how common was it really for people you knew to remove their smog equipment?
Altering some emission equipment did occur in the early days. Percentage wise I have no idea how many vehicles were tweaked but I’d rough guess that a fair amount (not common, not rare) did get altered.
The most common tweaks were stuffing a BB into an EGR vacuum line or removal of the secondary air pump belt due to a noisy pump or the misguided assumption that removal of the belt would create more horsepower and so on.
Some may remember that it was common back in the day for auto parts houses and even places like K-Mart and so on to sell “Filler neck adapter kits” which was basically a small funnel to allow leaded fuel into an unlead vehicle. Those kits caused a lot of grief and one of those kits is what fried an engine in a Cadillac that came wheezing onto the lot one time.
When the smoke settles it’s just like everything else; inspections boil down to a money trail.
I know/knew PLENTY of guys that removed their emissions equipment or did illegal modifications, which resulted in more power, but vastly more emissions
And I’d wager a lot of the regulars also know plenty of guys that tampered with and/or removed emissions equipment
One of my colleagues even admits that his customers (he used to run a shop) would PAY him to remove all that stuff
I know plenty of guys that removed the cat and ran a straightpipe
It might be less than 10% of the cars were tampered with
Perhaps somebody has some hard numbers that he’d like to post . . .
But I’d say it’s probably more than just an urban legend
I also know guys that take their car stock to get smogged
As soon as it passes, all that non-approved stuff goes back on and/or emissions stuff is removed
And so it goes, for 2 years, until the next smog is due
As soon as it passes, all that non-approved stuff goes back on and/or emissions stuff is removed@db4690: Then you agree emissions inspections are a waste of money, because--in your own experience--they're so easily cheated?
Not at all
I think a better system needs to be in place to catch the flagrant cheaters and the ones who claim they’re gaming the system
I will NEVER agree that emissions inspections are a waste of money
Back in the 80s I admit that I was guilty of illegal tweaks. SAAB used CIS injection and there was an issue with CO which led to a slightly rough idle even on brand new cars. My memory is fuzzy but I think the spec was something like .75% on the CO. A new car (especially an automatic) would not idle smoothly at that spec.
During the Pre-Delivery Inspection checking the CO and HC with an Infra-red was required and we were faced with a choice.
A. Leave the CO around .75% and possibly have to put up with customers turned off by a slightly rough idle.
B. Raise the CO to about 1.25% which was a violation of Federal law but which would smooth the idle out.
Option B was the one chosen and the asssumption was that if things ever hit the fan we would deny everything. It wasn’t uncommon for the CO to change a bit in the first few hundred miles anyway so pleading ignorance was what we were prepared to do if necessary.
But you just gave damning evidence to the contrary. YOU SAID that emissions tests DO NOT catch or deter violators, because the test is very easily cheated. You’re contradicting yourself. < /PerryMason>
I don’t think you can pick any one thing that was more beneficial than another to improved air quality. Technological advances certainly would have improved emissions, testing certainly helped and I think still does to a certain degree today, fuel economy alone lessens the amount of pollution in the air on a per car basis.
There’s also a regional aspect to it. For instance, Wyoming covers quite a large area but the entire state doesn’t even have the population of a decent sized city. Regulations and requirements that wouldn’t make sense there might be a must for a place like SoCal. The state of California has a world class economy and as such has to deal with problems many sovereign countries do not. The reason they are the nation’s leader in clean air laws is that CA was imposing emissions requirements and equipment before the EPA even existed. Some of their programs worked, some didn’t, but at least they were trying something.
I grew up in Los Angeles. I remember days when there were “smog alerts”, meaning that school recess wouldn’t be out on the playground because the air was deemed unhealthy for kids to play in. Dad bought a brand new Buick Skylark in 1969 that was later required to be fitted with a “NOx Device” that retarded timing to reduce emissions. Made the car run like crap the the corner service station eventually removed it. How do I reconcile the two? By steps. The air is cleaner now than it was then. Some things helped more than others. Life is a process.
I never removed anything and didn’t myself really know anyone that did. We just lived with the issues if any. It was common for the cat “test pipes” to be available at the parts store to take the cats out if they were troublesome but never really knew anyone that did.