For anyone who has ever been stuck behind a car belching thick black plumes of pollution, Southern California's smog cops have a message that some will find reassuring: They will soon be scanning the streets for smoky clunkers.
In the largest experiment of its kind in California, the South Coast Air Quality Management District plans to use remote sensors and video cameras to measure air pollution from 1 million vehicles as they enter freeways and navigate roads in the counties of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday August 18, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 Foreign Desk 2 inches; 89 words Type of Material: Correction
Smog checks -- An article in Sunday's Section A said "cars built in 1976 or before are exempt" from the state's smog-check program. That is no longer true under a state law that took effect April 1. Vehicles built in 1976 that were registered before April 1 did not have to get a smog check this year but will have to in the future. Vehicles built in 1976 and registered after April 1 have to get a smog check. Vehicles from the 1975 model year and earlier are exempt.
If caught, the owners of the most environmentally offensive cars and trucks would receive letters informing them that the government would pay to fix or scrap their vehicles. The South Coast district estimates that 10,000 to 20,000 of the dirtiest vehicles would be detected. Smog regulators lack the authority to order drivers to dump dirty cars, but they can offer incentives.
California officials estimate that the dirtiest 10% of all cars and trucks -- mostly older vehicles -- spew out roughly 50% of the state's smog-forming emissions from vehicles. By the end of this decade, three-fourths of emissions from vehicles will be from older cars and trucks, state officials estimate.
Studies have shown that scrapping high-polluting vehicles is among the most cost-effective ways of cleaning the air -- far cheaper than additional controls on power plants and refineries. Yet politicians and state officials have failed for years to get the dirtiest cars off the streets.
"You can't meet our air quality goals without addressing this problem," said Victor Weisser, chairman of California's Inspection and Maintenance Review Committee, which oversees the state's smog-check program.
"We have made great strides with cleaner gasoline and new engines, but you can't make bigger reductions until you get some of these cars off the road," he said. "And unless we do something, these cars from the 1980s are going to be on the road a long time."
Smog regulators are expected to give formal approval to the program next month, and enough sensors to scan a million cars -- one in 10 cars in Southern California -- would begin work early next year.
Air officials, fearing that motorists with dirty cars would try to avoid the sensors, won't disclose where they will be, other than saying most will be along freeway ramps. Perhaps as few as a dozen would be required, because each one can scan thousands of vehicles a day, and they will be moved from place to place, officials said.
