State Emissions Testing Program

Have you received your invitation to have your car’s emissions tested yet? Since the program went from the State run inspection stations to privately run garages and repair facilities, the program has certainly gone through some on-again, off-again turmoil. I almost had to have one of cars done right before the program was suspended for the umpteenth time.

Finally, the program seems to be running again and we received our notice from the State to bring one of our cars in. We ignored the suggestion to make an appointment and traveled to a tire store a few towns away. The first thing that occurs to me is that we still have to drive as far as we did before, so obviously no one locally sees fit to take on the challenge of offering the inspections. Upon arrival at this tire store, there is no place to park, cars are double-parked everywhere and we’re ready to make a second pass through the tiny lot when a spot opens up. We go inside to find out that we should have made an appointment and that all these people have appointments. He said we could wait, but it would be about 2 ½ hours. Well, that didn’t appeal to us, so we asked for an appointment.

Now think about this for a minute. When the State ran the program, there were considerably fewer inspection stations and yet you never needed an appointment and the wait was never 2 ½ hours. Now, with more stations available, they some how manage to make it so that there still are no options closer to my home, you need an appointment and people with appointments are waiting 2 ½ hours, so an appointment time means less to these guys than it means to a typical doctor’s office.

When we asked for the appointment, the earliest they could take us was five days later, which would also be after the required testing date. According to the gentleman booking the appointments, it wouldn’t matter. Sheila asked if we wouldn’t have to pay a late fee. Nope! Then we asked something about the sticker. There isn’t any. Huh?

You go and get your car inspected, pay your $20 after waiting 2 ½ hours and you don’t even get a lousy sticker telling anyone that it passed? So are we really on the honor system here? No police officer will ever know if you had you car done or not. Now I suppose if you get stopped, they could check to see if you were supposed to have it done or not and if so, if you had, but surely you would have to be stopped for something else in the first place. What a system.

Ever since I moved to CT in 1985, I have always wondered why we don’t safety test vehicles. You can have a rusty old hunk of junk with no taillights and one headlight, deficient wipers and worn ball joints, but if it doesn’t pollute, you’re good to go and thanks for stopping in. Certainly the people driving the above described vehicles would be the exact people who won’t bother to get tested now that there is no sticker. I’m hoping that something triggers a notice in the DMV’s computers and the registrations are pulled if you fail to go for your inspection and maybe that is the case if I had the time to look into it more, but if not, what a joke!

Bob Morin