To Test or Not to Test? A Matter of Vehicle Safety
There has been considerable debate over the last twenty-five years regarding the elimination of the Vehicle Testing Facilities in British Columbia.
Up until around 1980, every motorist was required to run their vehicle through the government run City Test once a year prior to renewing their insurance for the upcoming twelve months.
As shop owners, we would wring our hands with glee as we watched bewildered customers walk across the lot toward us with their test cards that had a million holes punched in them for items that were rejected.
It was widely thought that the corner service stations were in cahoots with the vehicle testers in Vancouver, and that all the headlights and mufflers we sold were somehow not required by the customers. That certainly was not the case. Why? Because headlights either work or they don’t, and mufflers either leak or they don’t. They aren’t subjective parts.
The problem is with all the subjective parts, the ball joints that are too loose today because I’m mad at my kids and having a bad day, but they might be fine tomorrow if I feel better. Is there really too much blue smoke bellowing from this tailpipe, or am I just snarley today?
Hence we had citizens running from Vancouver to Richmond to Burnaby testing stations looking for someone to pass their marginal tires or front end, and eventually complaining to the government about lack of consistency in testing.
And we had little old ladies who couldn’t buy groceries until we received a replacement for the cracked taillight lens on their 64 Austin Cambridge, from England.
The theory of testing was good, but had a few major flaws. Firstly they didn’t pull wheels to actually check brake linings, so you could have 10 miles left on your brakes and as long as they were adjusted properly you could pass. Mind you, you might have failed for a turn signal switch that didn’t cancel, or a dome light that was out.
Secondly the city testers could condemn the engine on your car just by watching the blue smoke come out the tailpipe. There was no testing equipment for emissions, just a “look see” snap decision.
One of the favourite failures was Headlight Adjustment. You could sit in line for an hour and then be rejected because you turned the wrong screws the last time you changed your headlight. Or worse yet, some service station kid did it for you.
So the entire system was scrapped, as it wasn’t a thorough enough inspection and was often targeting things that weren’t necessarily safety concerns.
So then the Government did nothing for 10 years and finally invented CVIP testing, or the Commercial Vehicle Inspection Program that exists today. CVIP testing is for all taxis, limos and any other commercial passenger carrying vehicle.
This would include the vans that farm workers are transported in, the ones in the news involved in the horrible accidents last month.
Also included are ICBC rebuilds that are returning to the road, any out of province vehicle being licensed here for the first time and any vehicle a police officer requests, at his discretion, be tested. Read: young kids with lowered noisy cars, and anyone who lips off a police officer.
I once did an inspection of a new car with less than 4000 km on it, as the young girl who owned it lipped off the police officer who then tagged her with an inspection requirement that took $90 out of her pocket.
So CVIP inspections aren’t totally fair and tend to put the onus on the police for targeting vehicles in poor condition while not allowing the vehicle inspectors a broader power to remove unsafe vehicles from the road.
An example of that would be as an inspector performing an inspection, I must measure the thickness of the brake rotors to ensure they have the ability to dissipate heat properly, among other things. If the rotor is too thin, it is a failure, although that vehicle may stop just fine.
Yet I can have people with dangerous brakes come in off the street and decide not to repair their grinding brake pads, leaking calipers, oil soaked brake shoes or bypassing master cylinders. As a Provincially Licensed Vehicle Inspector I am powerless to stop them from driving back out onto a busy street, hoping they can stop when your kids cross at the next corner.
Inspectors need the power to condemn vehicles that are truly not safe. They don’t have to be fixed at the shop that slaps the sticker on the vehicle, they just have to be able to get them off the road.
From the steel cords hanging out of the tires, to the steering racks that won’t turn left anymore unless you hold your tongue right, the steering boxes that are ripping out of the rotten frames, the tie rods that are ready to break, the broken engine mounts that cause the gas pedal to stick on heavy acceleration, the guys with no brakes or with multigrade motor oil in his master cylinder and swelling his brake hydraulics to ten times their original size, all the truly dangerous stuff needs to be stopped.
The consumer groups are so worried some shop will sell someone a tie rod end that is only bad and not life threatening, that they are missing the big picture. Someone has to make a decision somewhere along the path to safety. And who better than the technicians we trust with our vehicles. If you don’t trust me to tell you when some part on your car might kill you, or worse, someone else, then please don’t deal with me. Go to the shop of your choice.
Rather than starting another AirCare kind of burrocracy, maybe it is time to look at requiring all used vehicles over a certain age, say 5 years, to be inspected before they can be transferred or sold.
At least then we can say that someone has done something to try and deal with this situation.