New Law Benefits Old Bug, but Smog Inspection Pollutes Issue

Dear Street Smart:

As an owner of a 1970 Beetle, I was gratified to see SB42 signed into law. As of Jan. 1, my car is exempt from smog inspections. So imagine my dismay at opening my recently received registration renewal and finding that the state wants to stick it to me one more time: My registration is due Jan. 14, two weeks after the new law takes effect, yet I am expected to enclose a smog certificate along with my check. I can’t be the only one facing this dilemma. Should I just send along a copy of SB42 with my check? As a matter of principle, I resist paying for a smog inspection from which my car is exempt.

Stephen C. Lee

La Habra

As well you should. Delay sending your registration until after the first of the year. Then send it minus the smog certificate with the phrase “1970 vehicle exempt from smog check” written in big red letters, says DMV spokesman Evan Nossoff. “I would not be subtle,” Nossoff advises.

You’re right about not being alone--the new law affects about 1.5% of the state’s 400,000 passenger cars, and many have registrations due in January. The problem, Nossoff says, is that the state sends out registration notices 90 days in advance, sometimes before a new law is signed.

“It takes time to reprogram our computers,” he says, “and when a law is passed late in the legislative session with a January implementation, we’re really stuck.”

Under current law, cars manufactured in 1966 or earlier are exempt from the every-other-year smog check required of newer cars. The new law will change that year to 1973, as well as introduce a “rolling” exemption for any car that is at least 30 years old beginning in 2003.

Dear Street Smart:

We are trying to sell our home here in Oregon. When we do, we will be moving back to Southern California--in the San Clemente area, we hope. I have some vague information from California DMV that there will be a $300 charge to accept our Oregon-licensed 1996 four-cylinder Honda Accord for registration in California. Is this a one-time fee?

A $300 fee will not make our car “smog free,” nor will it make it acceptable to meet the rigid requirements for California. But the real question is, will we be expected to meet the California standards each year and will we have to have the car “brought up” to California standards by making changes or additions to the exhaust system?

Bill Gibson

Umpqua, Oregon

The $300 fee is a one-time charge imposed on any car purchased outside the state, according to Nossoff. As for your other questions, there is bad news and good news. The bad news is that you will, indeed, have to maintain your car at California standards. The good news is that most newer cars pass that test easily, making modifications to your exhaust system unlikely. Anyway, under a law that goes into effect Jan. 1, you won’t have to get your first smog test until the car is 4 years old, in 2000.

Dear Street Smart:

Throughout Anaheim--like at State College and La Palma, and also at Brookhurst and La Palma--are these large boxes. I don’t know what they are called, but these boxes have outlines of arrows and interstates. I’ve seen them for the past two years. What’s the story on these boxes?

Mario Luna

Anaheim The boxes are “trailblazer signs” designed to alert motorists regarding the conditions on nearby freeways. None is operable. According to John Lower, the city’s traffic and transportation manager, they are part of a project to keep traffic flowing smoothly along six miles of the Orange Freeway and 10 miles of the Riverside Freeway during incidents--usually traffic accidents--that would otherwise slow it down.

The idea, Lower said, for these signs to work in conjunction with freeway message boards. When the freeway is congested, message boards will direct traffic onto La Palma Avenue, which runs parallel to the Riverside Freeway, or State College Boulevard, which runs alongside the Orange Freeway. Once traffic is past the congestion, these 15 trailblazer signs will direct vehicles back onto the appropriate freeway.

The system, funded by the state and overseen by the city and Caltrans, will be controlled by a computer program being developed. Lower said he expects the system, including the mysterious boxes, to be working in about nine months.

Street Smart appears Mondays in The Times Orange County Edition. Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about traffic, commuting and what makes it difficult to get around in Orange County. Include simple sketches if helpful. Letters may be published in upcoming columns. Please write to David Haldane, c/o Street Smart, The Times Orange County Edition, P.O. Box 2008, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, send faxes to (714) 966-7711 or e-mail him at David.H[email protected] Include your full name, address and day and evening phone numbers. Letters may be edited, and no anonymous letters will be accepted.