Main Street Journal: On the River: The Three Hour Wait

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The following article is taken from the April 2010 issue of the Main Street Journal. Click “Subscribe Online” above to start your subscription.

The Three Hour Wait
By: Joe Saino

For years Memphians have suffered in auto inspection lines for up to several hours and recently for up to three hours. Then, as happened recently to my daughter, you fail the inspection because after putting on your footbrake and touching your accelerator, you car went forward a fraction of an inch. Abject failure.

My daughter was justifiably furious, but being a good citizen, she asked the reasonable question, “When I come back next time, can I go to a special fast lane to check the emergency brake?” No, she was told, get in line again and wait another two hours.

A group of local citizens decided to start really investigating this situation to see what other cities are doing. We found that Nashville, Chattanooga and other cities have been testing only the auto emissions and they do it with modern equipment that plugs into the automobile computer terminal that has been on cars since 1996. These cities do not require the safety testing as they feel that this is the responsibility of the owner and in obvious cases, the police on the streets. They have turned this limited emission testing process over to the private contractor. The benefit is that the private contractor builds the inspection stations, collects a $10 fee per car, the wait time is 10 to 15 minutes and returns some of the fee to the state and local government. The cities are relieved of the capital costs and the labor costs.

Meanwhile back in the forward looking and innovative City of Memphis, we are still testing for auto emissions by sticking a long wand up the tailpipe and testing for head, tail and brake lights, windshield wipers, cracks in the auto glass, turn signals and, of course, the emergency foot brake (lots of luck in using that).

After digging further into this matter, we found that the cost of the license fee, once you pass the inspection tests) is broken down in the following way. Also we found the figures for what Memphis spends for auto inspections and what they are spending to build a new fourth auto inspection station.

The city of Memphis has the following charges in the $117.00 license plate fee. Title fee $13, Registration $24, Wheel tax $50 (the wheel tax was passed in 1988 to fund new school construction and has never gone away) and City Fee, $30. The City fee is called a municipality fee (another word for a tax). It goes to the city’s general fund, but part of it covers the cost to operate the Memphis vehicle inspection stations.

This $30 fee times 430,000 vehicles equals $12.9 million dollars.

The budget figure for vehicle inspections for 2010 budget is $1.511 million including 32 employees. This leaves $11.3 million which is a tax going into the general budget, not auto inspections.

None of this makes any sense. We have confirmed all this with local and state officials. Does this make you mad that we have been waiting in line and paying for years for no legitimate reason except that our political representatives are too lazy to figure out a better and cheaper way. It certainly makes me, and my daughter, mad.

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