Leno's Law Hits a Snag!

My old '65 Ford 

Oops, looks like Leno's Law (California Senate bill SB 712) has hit a snag. The Senate Appropriations Committee made some changes to Leno's Law. These are: 

Required collector car insurance: This addresses concerns that the bill could be used as a loophole for non-collector vehicles.

Mandated historical vehicle license plates: This further helps to identify genuine collector cars.

Delayed implementation until 2027: This gives the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) time to implement necessary system changes and training without impacting the state budget. 

I know I stirred things up with my last post on SB 712. Let me state right here I am not against modifying cars. I am against increased pollution. I think there is a way to satisfy both.

Let’s say you have a GM vehicle from the 1980s with a feedback carburetor. Chances are by now it is in sad shape and probably won’t pass a smog inspection. But what can you do? California says you can’t modify the emission systems. And if you do, you may have to go for a full EPA test, cold soak, full drive cycle, et al. What a pain.

When I was on the Inspection and Maintenace Review Committee it was proposed that a simple smog inspection at a referee should suffice. As long as nothing was torn off - evap still working, catalytic converter still there, EGR, etc - the only worry should be what comes out of the tailpipe, not whether it has the right carburetor, or other component.

The proposal was that once a car was “modified” it would go to the smog referee. It would be tested, and if it passed the visual, functional, and tailpipe test, the referee would label the car showing the modifications. Easy peasy.

Today’s aftermarket fuel injection systems, even slapped on an old engine, would be an improvement. Heck a complete engine change using one of today’s crate engines should be huge improvement. 

But let's talk about a real collector car, because I think that's part of the problem. What defines a collector car? The definition is pretty loose at times; "it can be an older classic, vintage, or even a more modern vehicle that is desirable for its collectibility." In other words anything. And that's the flaw in Leno's Law.

It seems to me that Leno's Law was a way that folks with car collections wouldn't have to spend some bucks on smog inspections. Oh boo hoo. If you can afford the hobby you should be able to afford the smog inspections. I have to smog my non-collectible '97 Mazda B4000 every two years. I don't like paying the $60 bucks but I do it. If I owned a few true collectible cars I definitely would have more bucks than I do now, so I'd pay.

Maybe have a little more concern for the folks out there who are just scraping by. The cost of a smog inspection is just one more expense they really can't afford. But they do it.

Another excuse I've heard for not smogging collector cars is they don't get driven that much, so they often need tuning to get them to pass. Really, that's your reason? I put way less than 5,000 miles a year on my pickup so maybe I shouldn't have to smog it?

So let’s cut the crap about “collector cars” and actually do something to clean the air. Let's look for a solution that doesn't exempt cars but actually cleans them. And maybe let's look for a way to help the working poor have reliable, clean transportation. We can do better.