There is an overwhelming psychology on the Left that if the government isn’t doing something, nothing is being done. It’s an expensive, inefficient, and often counterproductive mindset. However, sometimes reality and common sense prevail, as recently demonstrated in neighboring New Hampshire, where the state has eliminated its vehicle inspection mandate. According to the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, the move is expected to save Granite Staters approximately $41.5 million to $69.2 million per year. That’s just the cost of the sticker and does not include the cost of unnecessary repairs to obtain said sticker.
Critics wailed, Oh, but if the government didn’t require auto inspections, the irresponsible citizenry would allow their vehicles to degrade into ticking time bombs detonating at random on the roads, creating death and mayhem throughout the land! (I’m paraphrasing.)
Nope.
Turns out that numerous studies of other states and countries that do not require vehicle safety inspections indicate no significant differences in safety caused by vehicle failures between inspection and non-inspection zones. New Jersey, which ended its inspection requirement in 2010, did a before-and-after analysis and, yup, found no significant difference in safety outcomes. (The Josiah Bartlett Center lists and links to the studies in THIS POST.)
Also interesting to those of us boiled frogs who’ve grown up on the northeast coast, where vehicle inspections seem to be a given natural state of affairs, most states don’t require them. Only eleven — well, now ten — do. And those other forty states are, would you believe it, just fine. So, there’s plenty of evidence that this whole government-mandated inspection scheme is just a racket. Let’s get rid of it! It is as so much of what government does a useless expense that robs citizens of other opportunities to invest our time and money in actually productive and beneficial activities.
It turns out that with free markets/free people, we citizens are incentivized to keep our cars in safe operating condition without Big Brother’s prodding because who among us wants to die in a fiery ball of twisted metal? Not me! Nor do I relish the idea of being stranded on the side of the highway looking under a hood and having to pretend to all those whizzing by I have a clue about what I’m looking at. And, with those consumer selling points in mind, auto manufacturers are incentivized to make safer, more reliable vehicles, which they have done progressively throughout the industry’s history.
All of this is contrary to the Left’s governing hypothesis that without their sage meddling, businesses would, while twirling their Simon Legree mustaches, make shoddier and shoddier products that too stupid consumers would, for some inexplicable reason, purchase anyway.
So, just some back-of-the-napkin calculations here… Vermont is home to over half a million registered vehicles. At $70 a pop for an annual inspection (that’s what I just paid), Vermonters would save around $35 million a year and lose nothing on the public safety side in the bargain. Repeal! No brainer. And don’t stop there.
$35 million a year isn’t chicken feed. How many other unnecessary and unproductive government mandates are out there we could cut as well? The mandate to buy more expensive, less reliable renewable energy comes to mind. Forcing most Vermonters to subsidize the purchase of electric vehicles for a select few of their neighbors. “Net Zero” building requirements driving up the cost of housing construction. If these things provided actual value, there would be no reason for government mandates and subsidies. Like vehicles that don’t break down or blow up, people would seek out and pay for those things willingly.
But this stuff is part of what I’ll call the useless political economy – an island of misfit projects that are not valued by the consumer and inefficient in their implementation They consume more resources than they generate on their own so have to be propped up by government taxing and spending. As such, they are by definition, inherently “unsustainable.”
These exist because of political patronage; buying votes with other people’s money For example, the businesses that perform vehicle inspections are understandably happy to have government force the owners of half a million cars to utilize their services. One can’t blame them. But let’s not pretend this is an efficient or effective use of resources.
Too often these days, this the “business model” enterprises are counting on — rather than make a quality product consumers want and can afford, just hire some lobbyists to get the government to force people to buy (or subsidize) your undesired and/or overpriced widget. It’s parasitic. Unhealthy economic endeavors living at the expense of the healthy ones. Too many or too ravenous parasites will eventually kill the host.
Vermont has a path back to affordability. The path is just overgrown with the weeds and vines of over-taxation, over-regulation, and an over-proliferation of inefficient, unprofitable political activity that saps the working economy. Time to bring out the machete. Eliminating our vehicle inspection mandates like forty other states would be a good – and easy — first whack.
