Taking your car in every year for its inspection sticker is a familiar ordeal to all Maine drivers, but some lawmakers are looking to make this a less frequent experience.
Under LD 1010, sponsored by Rep. Chad R. Perkins (R-Dover-Foxcroft), drivers would only need to get their inspection stickers updated every other year.
Cosponsoring this bill are Rep. Roger Clarence Albert (R-Madawaska), Rep. Quentin J. Chapman (R-Auburn), Rep. Randall Adam Greenwood (R-Wales), Rep. Michael J. Lance (R-Paris), Rep. Richard G. Mason (R-Lisbon), Rep. James Lee White (R-Guilford), and Sen. Craig Hickman (D-Kennebec).
Click Here for More Information on LD 1010
Among the states that do require regular safety inspections, some mandate that they be conducted annually — as is currently the case in Maine — while others are only every two years.
Supporters of these regular inspections argue that they help to keep poorly maintained and unsafe vehicles off the road, but some evidence suggests that they may not actually have a substantial impact after all.
A 2021 report published by the Maine Policy Institute found that between 2015 and 2019, only three percent of car accidents involved mechanical difficulties.
Under state law, it is already a Class E crime to operate a “defective vehicle,” meaning that inspection stickers are not the only mechanism for deterring drivers from taking unsafe cars on the road.
Despite this, Maine police have previously pushed back against efforts to repeal the law, arguing that the inspections provide a safety net allowing for problems to be identified and corrected in a timely manner.
Some critics, on the other hand, have said that the system opens the door for unscrupulous mechanics to charge drivers for unnecessary repairs.
Several other bills have already been introduced this session that also aim to amend or otherwise do away with Maine’s vehicle inspection program.
Under a bill introduced by Rep. Ann Fredericks (R-Sanford), the mandatory safety inspection requirement would be repealed for the majority of cars that are driven by Mainers on a daily basis.
“Other states have already abolished this antiquated requirement that is an inconvenience,” Rep. Fredericks said.
From Rep. Frederick’s perspective, advancements in safety standards and auto-making technology mean that annual inspections should no longer be necessary for most personal vehicles, as they’ve become more of a nuisance than a guarantor of public safety.
Her bill would not alter inspection rules for commercial vehicles, trailers, semitrailers, and fire trucks, according to the official summary of the legislation.
[RELATED: Maine Considers Repealing Annual Vehicle Inspection Requirement]
One Bangor Democrat, Rep. Amy J. Roeder, has now proposed exempting new cars from Maine’s annual vehicle safety inspections for the first three years after they are manufactured.
That said, this exemption would be nullified if the vehicle were involved in a crash or natural disaster, as well as if the car is sold to another owner.
[RELATED: Maine’s Annual Vehicle Inspection Requirement in the Cross-Hairs of Bipartisan Legislators]
Two Republican-led bills introduced this year seek to allow the Maine State Police to require the use of an electronic inspection program for the annual vehicle safety inspections.
If approved, this would create an electronic surveillance system to track vehicle inspections that mechanics around the state would be required to use, if directed to by the State Police.
More specifically, an “electronic inspection program” is defined in these proposals as a program designated by the Chief of the State Police “that uses electronically generated data as part of an inspection and permits the creation and exchange of an electronic record for maintaining inspection information.”
While one proposal would increase the inspection fee to $20, from the current level of $12.50, while another would cap fees at 2.5 times the state minimum wage.
Based on the current minimum wage of $14.65, this would mean that the cap would be initially set at $36.63.
Public hearings have not yet been scheduled for any of these proposals to amend or repeal Maine’s vehicle inspection system, but it can be expected that ones will be scheduled in the coming weeks.
