Smog Check programs must encourage honesty

Almost no one questions that cheating is rampant in California’s Smog Check programs, both in rural areas where tests are easier to pass and in so-called “enhanced” areas where the tough Smog Check II plan reigns. But there’s plenty of dispute over how to straighten out this contentious program.

The state Bureau of Automotive Repair reports it conducted undercover checks last year at more than 1,500 of the 8,000 testing stations around the state. Almost all those visits came after the bureau already knew cheating had occurred on site, with most such clues gleaned from discrepancies showing up on its computers.

The industry group Clean Air Performance Professionals estimates at least some cheating goes on every year in “at least 80 percent” of Smog Check shops, says the group’s president, Charlie Peters.

But BAR has limited funds and can’t do much random testing, so large numbers of stations probably get away with routine criminal chicanery. This can take many forms: Some stations may have a car standing by that’s already passed the test, ready to substitute for your smoky vehicle for a price. That’s called “clean-piping.” Others may ignore a missing part or faulty timing.

Even certified Gold Shield repair stations, where the state spends some $20 million per year helping to fix polluting cars, can cheat. Sometimes they put more parts in than are needed to clean up a car’s emissions. Other times they may charge a customer hundreds of dollars, but not really repair anything, knowing a confederate in the testing station will clean-pipe the car later. That’s an effort to cheat both the customer and the Smog Check system.

The Bureau of Automotive Repair fights all this with computers that instantly note when two tests at the same station produce identical results, as often happens with clean-piping.

And the BAR sends in undercover cars when it gets repair receipts from Gold Shield stations showing replacement of parts not justified by a car’s test results.

The bureau now relies on the threat of lifting station owners’ licenses, thus rendering worthless investments of $250,000 or more in dynamometers and other equipment.

“We like to have probable cause before we move in,” says Rich Mundy, the BAR’s deputy chief for field operations and enforcement. “It’s much more efficient than when we did 9,000 random checks a year (in the early 1980s).”

But cheating can be done by employees, even right under the nose of a well-meaning shop owner. Owners are then held responsible, and can lose their licenses if they can’t show they’ve taken some kind of action to prevent mechanics from cheating.

“We suggest they might use their own cars to check the honesty of their mechanics or make sure that at least two people are involved in some way on every check,” Mundy said.

“That’s unfair,” Peters said. “There have been shops where employees were caught clean-piping and the owner had no way to know about it, but they were put out of business, even though they did take precautions.”

Peters favors a return to the system in effect before 1991, when the BAR randomly checked testing stations and gave two or three warnings and fines before lifting a license. He also believes the BAR should use cars that it knows will test as gross polluters to check on the honesty of licensed repair shops.

Peters contends that during the years 1985-1991, when a warning-and-fine system was in effect, cheating stations dropped to no more than 20 percent from about 80 percent found dishonest on previous random checks.

Replies Mundy, “We don’t take licenses away from guys who just slip. But if they cheat with design, that’s fraud and that’s a crime. And I would strongly dispute that 80 percent of all shops do some cheating, or that they did it before 1985.”

These two sides will not arrive at an agreement soon. But they ought to find a compromise. For today’s system may indeed be overly tough on shop owners who want to be honest, but are confounded by corrupt employees.

What’s needed is a plan that motivates honesty, for that’s the only way to assure both fairness in smog testing and the clean air that’s the aim of the whole program.

Tom Elias is author of The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It, now available in an updated second edition. His e-mail address is tdelias [at] aol.com.