Short notice on legislation!!! (1 Viewer)

[Scott68FJ40]

I brougt this up before, but I feel I must ask again.

What benefit do you see this having for any of us? We certainly don't fall under the criteria for this when it comes to the collertors insurance and such.

I don't see this changing anything at all for us cruiser owners.

 

[Scott68FJ40]

As an example, the following is the link to Haggerty insurance, which seems to be about the most liberal from my research on what they will insure, and like all the others I could find, they specifically exclude off road vehicles.

http://www.hagerty.com/vehicle_qualify.asp

I just can't get excited about this legislation when it is very clear that my land cruiser will NEVER fall under it and it will make no difference in my life whatsoever.

 

[Cdaniel]

As an example, the following is the link to Haggerty insurance, which seems to be about the most liberal from my research on what they will insure, and like all the others I could find, they specifically exclude off road vehicles.

http://www.hagerty.com/vehicle_qualify.asp

I just can't get excited about this legislation when it is very clear that my land cruiser will NEVER fall under it and it will make no difference in my life whatsoever.

No, this won't have much if any effect on owners of old Land Cruisers. With the possible exception of a pristine restoration that never goes off road. But you need to look at the big picture here. This is a positive step towards a rational attitude towards the emission testing of older vehicles. It puts the notion in the mindset of legislators the next time someone moves to have a rolling 20, 25 or 30 year exemption, such as in CA. That is a law change that will have an effect on a lot of us. Of course it may never happen, but this is still a chink in the armor regarding the nonesense of testing the miniscule percentage of the driving fleet that is over 25 years old.

 

[Scott68FJ40]

My former business partner has been a key player in this for many years. He has worked rolling exemption legislation over the last number of years, and when I spoke to him last night, he told me that becuase of this bill, a rolling expemtion is all but dead.

The reason being that the car clubs that worked very hard on this bill now have what they want, and will no longer work on anything else. He suspects that it will be many years before anything is brought up again. I hope I am wrong about this, but as I said, I have a very hard time seeing this as any sort of victory.

 

[Scott68FJ40]

Just got off the phone with my former business partner that is really in the know on all this and he did tell me something I didn't know.

After the governor signs this, it will be atleast 2007 before it will take effect. This has to go to the US EPA for approval and nothing will happen right away on that. The positive thing is that it is possible to get other legislation, such as a rolling exemption passed before the EPA looks at it and have them approve it all at once. The downside is that the collector car guys and motorcycle guys will be of no real help any any further legislation as they have gotten what they wanted. He is working on proposed legislation for next session for a rolling exemption and has a legistator to introduce it, but doesn't have any clue as to where he will find the support for getting it through since the classic car guys, and their money, are now gone.

 

[Cdaniel]

All right! All right already! You found me out. I'm an undercover gearhead shill trying to coerce you 4x4 guys into supporting my agenda

We've got our way now (sinister laugh) We're all going to laugh all the way to our car shows now. All you gullable offroaders that thought this would help you, You all can eat cake! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaa!

Silly huh?

Seriously, I think that a lot of collector car guys might actually have an old daily driver or recreational (off road) vehicle. Vehicles that they would rather not have be used to line the pockets of the emission test vendors. I may be wrong but I think there is still enough support out there to continue the fight. I know I will. And it would only have an effect on my 4x4. My daily drivers are both too old to be tested. For me the fight is more about getting the government out of my wallet and the principles associated with that.

I'm not going to be a defeatist. I'm going to be an optimist.

It still pisses me off every year I have to pay for the priveledge of having my recreational vehicle molested buy some hack at an emissions station. A vehicle that is only opereated on weekends and outside the county in question.

BS!

 

[Scott68FJ40]

I hope that there is. We have 3/4 of a year to try and get some support going. The next session starts in Jan.

This would be something very worthwhile for the new club to get behind and try to organize. I am sure that you are right about a lot of the collector guys having daily drivers and such that they would lke to get out of the system, and while they might personally support the effort, the associations most likely will not. That is why some effort needs to be made to organize support now for such an effort.

There are many ways that the emissions testing is offensive. Not everyone is treated the same. You Maricopa guys have to go through tighter standards than us down here in Pima, and even here in Pima not everyone has to do it. If you live down in retiree heaven Green Valley, you are exempt from testing. If you are in any other county in the state you are also exempt. It is simply not right.

The political problem we are up against is that the state gets credits from the EPA for having the testing in place for the older vehicles. Those credits allow the state to ignore other types of pollution. Emissions testing does NOTHING to clean the air, and might actually hurt the environment since the credits allow other things to pollute. The state is not going to be all that eager to give those credits up. There is also the issue of the revenue that the state brings in from the testing fees that hasn't really been hashed around alot.

In the big picture of things, the only real problem that this bill passing has is that some of the larger state collector car associations spent some real money to lobby the legislators to get this passed, and will not drop the money to continue since they feel that they have won. We need to find a way to organize ourselves.

I apologize if I sounded quite negative in my posts, but while some might see this as a big win, I simply don't. I don't see it as a loss by any means, but certainly not a big victory.

 

[Cdaniel]

Good comments all, maybe we can get movement going in the offroad communtity. I wouldn't know where to start though.