[dmurray]

The numbers just don't seem big enough. Repair costs of $62,000 over two years in LA and Ventura counties - an area with 10 million people. The savings from 100% enforcement at the scrapyard level would pay for what, one full time employee inspector for the state of California?

It would be cheaper all round to add a $100 yearly registration fee to every scrapyard, rather than give them an extra compliance burden.

[gs17]

The guardrails aren't the only things being stolen for scrap, they're just what the article focuses on. There's a link included to an article about streetlight copper theft which probably costs even more, and another about telecom theft.

According to https://laist.com/news/criminal-justice/la-city-council-copp... :

> In the [2023] fiscal year, that number skyrocket to a staggering 6,842 cases, with repair costs exceeding well over $20 million.