Cars do it. Trucks do it. And now the state of California may require motorcycles to do it, too.
Biennial smog checks would be required for motorcycles manufactured in the 2000 model year and later under a bill making its way through the California Legislature.
Introduced in the Senate in late February, SB 435 targets bikes with illegally modified exhaust systems and would go into effect in 2012 if passed and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, an avid motorcyclist.
The measure has won support from health and environmental groups that say the move is critical to reducing the state's smog pollution but has angered motorcycle-rights groups, dealers and manufacturers, which say it's bad for business and an infringement of riders' freedoms.
Motorcycles account for 3.6% of registered vehicles in the state and make up just 0.8% of vehicle-miles traveled, yet account for 10% of passenger vehicles' smog-forming emissions, according to the California Air Resources Board, which backs the measure. Although fuel-efficient bikes emit significantly less carbon dioxide per mile, the ARB says they are, on average, 14 times more polluting per mile when it comes to emissions of oxides of nitrogen and hydrocarbons -- smog-forming pollutants that have been shown to trigger asthma attacks and worsen respiratory and cardiac illnesses.
The ARB estimates that 5.2 tons of pollutants would be prevented from entering the atmosphere daily if motorcycle smog checks become law.
"Five tons of smog out of 5,691 tons emitted daily from all statewide sources is so minuscule," said John Paliwoda, executive director of the California Motorcycle Dealers Assn. in Lake Elsinore. "Our feeling is that fewer people will want to buy motorcycles if they'd have to go through a smog check where no smog check is required right now."
Already, the industry is aching from the freezing of consumer credit and plummeting personal wealth, which have led to a 30.5% decline in new sales for the first quarter of 2009 over the same period last year, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council.
But the ARB says every emission source is fair game in its effort to corral pollutants linked to health problems and climate change.
"It's so difficult to find new sources of emissions reductions, particularly for L.A.," said Tom Cackette, the ARB's deputy director. "Some people think motorcycles look small, and percentage-wise they are tiny, but so is everything else that's available for emissions reductions."
