Today is my birthday. In Georgia, that means the deadline to play ad valorem taxes, get the annual emissions inspection, renew tags and all of those sorts of things. I own two vehicles: a ’92 Dodge Caravan and a ’96 Saturn SL1. It should be pretty easy to get both cars to pass inspection, right? Apparently not.

This story starts several days ago, when we attempted to take both vehicles for inspection. The tester at the inspection station tried the Saturn first, and could not test it—there is a problem with the DLC (data link connector) that reports OBD-II data; things such as whether or not the computer is ready to report on the compliance of all of the car’s emissions control subsystems. The van, which has a significant chunk of its tailpipe missing, tested just fine on the third attempt (it kept jumping off of the dynamometer during the test). The Saturn, however, “could not be tested” according to the gentleman who attempted the test.

For those who don’t know, OBD-II is a feature found on 1996 and newer model year vehicles (and is required by federal law in the United States for all such vehicles). When it’s working correctly, it simplifies all sorts of diagnostics. Unlike older cars, where you have to guess and use process-of-elimination (combined with leaning on others who have experience) in order to diagnose many simple problems, a vehicle with OBD-II can “tell you where it hurts”, so to speak. The car can say “my forward oxygen sensor is bad”, or “there is something wrong in the area of the camshaft”. It isn’t perfect, and it cannot always tell you why the car is running poorly or about every single mechanical problem there is, but it sure does help someone like me who tries to work on the vehicles himself: simple problems are very quick to diagnose and often relatively easy to fix. Complex problems at least usually have their symptoms reported, which makes things easier to try to track down in most cases.

Well, funny story about that. For about three or four months, we were having problems with the Saturn wherein the coolant temperature gauge was acting up and misreporting nearly all the time. I attempted to fix the problem by replacing the following items:

• The coolant temperature sensor (a thermistor). I’ve had to replace it before, and it’s not that difficult. This time, however, it did not fix the problem.
• The connector for the coolant temperature sensor. Yet, the problem persisted.
• The PCM, which is responsible for sending reference voltage and reading the return voltage and determining the coolant’s temperature from that. Net effect: the new PCM I guess had a more up-to-date set of software on it, and the engine ran better (and the car performs better now), but that did not fix the problem.

All that work, and the temperature gauge was still not reading anything but an error. Now, I’m not one to trivialize or magnify problems, but when you have an engine that is made of aluminum, it’s usually a good idea to at least know for sure that the thing isn’t overheating. But I was stumped. The only thing I could think of at this point was the wire that connected the thermistor to the PCM computer.

Well, when we went to Toledo, I took the car to Charlie’s Automotive (really awesome people there; they have seen our cars more frequently than anyone in GA has!) and explained to them what the problem was and everything that I had attempted to fix the problem. And as it turned out, it was indeed the wire. (No, I didn’t take the car there just for that; there was a steering problem as well that I needed them to fix… I trust them with my car more than any other shop I’ve ever been to.) Anyway, so all was well. Or so I thought.

Fast forward to now. The PCM that I replaced? It’s not sending anything to the OBD-II DLC interface, which is precisely the thing that has to work in order for me to pass emissions. Or so I thought. Then, I came upon this page at the Georgia Clean Air Force Web site. One of the questions from the drop-down menu was “What tests will be performed?”, and the answer to that question was this:

All 1996 and newer vehicles will receive a three-part inspection:

• An OBD test to check your vehicle’s emission control performance history.
• A fuel cap inspection to check for adequate seal.
• A visual inspection of the catalytic converter to check for tampering or removal.

If an OBD test is unable to be performed on a vehicle, it may be necessary to perform a Two-Speed Idle test (TSI).

All 1995 and older model year vehicles will receive a three-part inspection:

• A TSI test or an Accelerated Simulation Mode (ASM2) test – A dual-mode test including a 25/25 test = 25 percent load at 25 MPH and a 50/15 test = 50 percent load at 15 MPH.
• A fuel cap inspection to check for adequate seal.
• A visual inspection of the catalytic converter to check for tampering or removal.

An inspector can reject a vehicle for testing if it is considered unsafe to test. If the test has already begun when the safety problem is detected, the inspector may charge the full price of the test.

Note that the emphasis there is mine. So, having read this, I printed the page out, and I proceeded to get out and get my car passed so that I would be able to renew its tags. Or so I thought; reality, as is usually the case, is vastly different.

I got to the emissions testing place, where I was told that I have to have a letter from GCAF in order to have the alternative test done. They sent me to the GCAF office for Dekalb County—which is all the way across town, and if you know anything about getting around town in Atlanta during the day, you can imagine that was just a joyful experience. I was told that they’d give me a letter and that then I could have this test done.

So, I went there. It took me 45 minutes, even though it was only 15 or so miles. Now, this is normal here.

It occurs to me that we wouldn’t need emissions testing if the real underlying problems were solved.  Back to the emissions thing in a minute: there’s a way to fix that, too. Not that anyone who is in the position to make law in this state will give a rat’s rear end.

What problems, you ask?

• Traffic law enforcement down here is a joke—you can break damn near any traffic law in the metro Atlanta area, and the probability that you will be caught is near zero. This is probably because the police in the metro area like to spend their time pulling people over who have done nothing wrong. Case in point (and this is only one of many examples): I was once pulled over in Marietta, GA, while driving my 1992 Dodge Caravan. The officer claimed I had a license plate light out. I was questioned as to why I was driving at that time of night (it was between 1 and 2 AM, if memory serves), whether the passengers in my vehicle were any relation to me, so on and so forth. It was myself, Erica, and two friends (I was the only white person in the car, and I was its driver). When I was let go by the cops (in response to my prompt that they need to “write a ticket, arrest me for questioning, or let me go”) I was livid. I proceeded to my next stop, to drop off one of my passengers. And I checked the light by the license plate. It wasn’t out. It is our belief that the police thought I was trying to sell the “services” of my passengers.
• Repeat offenders—like, serious repeat offenders, with stacks of tickets both paid and unpaid—get to keep their license. I’m not sure why. The state law seems pretty clear to me, so the only thing I can think of is that people are getting reduced tickets for damn near everything. My guess is that this is because the police have no interest in going to court hearings to defend their tickets, and harsher tickets are more likely to be contested, so it’s easier to slap people on the wrist. Guess what? This encourages people to behave like fucking morons because there is no reason for them not to!
• Lack of police presence on the interstates; I’ve lived here for years, and the only time I see police on the interstate in a traffic jam is when some idiot has wrecked. Instead, there should be a *lot* of police on the interstate during rush hours, and they should be pulling people off the road that are slowing things down. During traffic jams, people change their driving behavior in a way that is seemingly designed to ensure that nobody can go anywhere: people change lanes repeatedly (causing the flow to change and be inhibited), people drive on shoulders when they’re not supposed to; the list goes on and on.
• Lack of the ability to truly investigate accidents that shut down the interstates. The interstate system should probably be covered in cameras. That way the idiot that caused the wreck that screwed everyone’s commute and cost metro Atlanta and its counties and cities buttloads of money can have their licenses suspended and car impounded if they were unlucky enough to have survived the wreck.

Waitaminute. What about the emissions?

Right, those things.

Well, you see, cars that were made before 1996 have a special sensor that is put into their tailpipe. They are then “driven” in-place on a dynamometer at a couple of speeds, and the actual pollutants coming out of the tailpipe are measured. Cars made after 1996 rely on the honor system: the car’s computer reports that all systems are ready and reports that all emissions components are working, then it’s a pass. It doesn’t matter how much smoke is coming out of the tailpipe. (Funny, yeah? I’ll bet asthma sufferers think that’s just fucking hilarious.)

However, sometimes things happen, and the computer in such cars doesn’t work. The dynamometer test should be allowed to be administered even to post-1996 cars. Why? It’s more truthful and accurate. And it should not have to require that I as a taxpayer have to pay a bunch of people to do a bunch of busywork to give me approval to have a more truthful, more effective test done on my car. How much sense does that make, really? None. There is no logical basis for requiring approval.

But, the lady that I talked to at GCAF disagrees.

See, it’s going to take several weeks for my replacement PCM (which AutoZone is replacing at no cost, under warranty) to arrive. Then  I have to put it in the car, and then I have to go return the old one, and only then will I be able to get a computerized emissions test. Oh, no, wait; I have to break in the new computer by executing GM’s hokey-pokey drive cycle song and dance, or it won’t report that it is ready. It can take up to 5 cycles for the computer to report that it is ready. And because of the aforementioned traffic in the metro area, it’s almost impossible to execute a drive cycle perfectly, so it can take even more drive cycles before the computer is truly confident that it is aware of everything that’s going on.

What’s the solution, then?

The lady at GCAF says: fill out a form and request non-conforming status for your car. In anywhere from three days to four weeks (!) you will have an answer. In the meantime, drive your car illegally, if you have to drive, and just don’t get caught.

Wait, what‽

Yes, that lady—who works for the state—told me to break the law and don’t let the Executive Branch catch  me doing it.

No fucking wonder people think they can get away with so much. The government workers here are aware that the police aren’t doing their enforcement duties, and telling people to take advantage of that fact.

It can therefore be no surprise that people actually do that. I mean, what’s the harm, right?

So, here’s the fix there: Let testing stations run the old test on a car that can’t run the new test. Maybe the car will pass, maybe the car will fail. In fact, for pre-2000 cars, it’s more likely that they’ll fail than pass, but that means that I can get a fail and then spend up to the $806 required to get a waiver.

According to the way things are currently, lack of testability is not a failure, it’s an aborted test. That means nothing I do changes anything.

The real problem with government? Too many convoluted rules, regulations, procedures, and waste. If people were truly interested in accomplishing anything, they’d use more effective techniques and strategies, and not just make laws that make it look like we’re doing something useful. That cannot happen when willful violators do not get punished, but the people who generally try to adhere to the law do get punished. What a joke.

And no, this is not a problem local to Georgia, and I’m sure it’s not local to the United States. Governments everywhere are abysmal failures: they fail to consider real impact, they fail to consider the utility of people who are willing to do good, they fail to consider that we’re all in this together, and they fail to realize that pissing money down the drain on things that don’t work only serves to steal that money away from things that could make a real, useful difference.