[pwg]

> which can pose a significant (and growing, as standards improve) obstacle for older cars.

At least for my state, the emissions test a car has to pass is whatever it was supposed to have passed when it was fresh off the assembly line. So older cars do not have to pass stricter newer standards that newer cars have to pass.

Now, granted, wear and tear will eventually result in an older car not passing its original standard, but at least the standard it has to pass is fixed, rather than a moving target.

[darrylb42]

BC stopped emission testing 10ish years ago because new cars almost never fail so there wasn't much value continuing the program.

[Scoundreller]

Dunno why these programs never took a sampling approach and data-mined which makes/models/years to target the next year/cycle.

[projektfu]

The only way to have affordable, ubiquitous testing stations is to make it universal. At least, in states that do not also require safety inspections. If only 10,000 cars were tested each year, nobody would buy the equipment.

[Dylan16807]

I don't see what the issue is. Pay the people running the test station more per test but less overall.

Extremely rough example numbers: Instead of testing a million cars for $20 each, 10k cars are tested for $200 each. 85% of testing stations shut down, and the rest downsize if they can, but there's still plenty of them around. The total cost of testing drops 90%. The state taxes every car $2 to pay for the randomized testing; being selected means you lose an hour driving to the station, not that you lose $200 of your own money.

[Scoundreller]

Mass (low-value) testing is only more affordable if you value people’s time at $0/hr

[projektfu]

It's not going to keep old cars on the road if you mandate expensive tests to do so, when new cars don't need the tests.

[consensus1]

Which is precisely what government bureaucrats value your time in complying with their arbitrary bullshit at.