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Investigators Believe Millions of TX Cars Were Not Checked for Safety &Emissions

Started by ZLoth, March 29, 2023, 08:09:20 AM

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jeffandnicole

https://www.statista.com/statistics/196010/total-number-of-registered-automobiles-in-the-us-by-state/

According to this site, there's a bit less than 8 million registered vehicles in Texas.  So is this news station, by saying that 'millions of Texas cars were never checked', that well over a quarter of the vehicles on the road in Texas are ignoring the basic safety inspections that are only a few dollars, which tend to have very high pass rates anyway?


J N Winkler

Quote from: jeffandnicole on April 01, 2023, 11:31:24 PMhttps://www.statista.com/statistics/196010/total-number-of-registered-automobiles-in-the-us-by-state/

According to this site, there's a bit less than 8 million registered vehicles in Texas.  So is this news station, by saying that 'millions of Texas cars were never checked', that well over a quarter of the vehicles on the road in Texas are ignoring the basic safety inspections that are only a few dollars, which tend to have very high pass rates anyway?

The article makes interesting reading.  The sergeant with the Travis County Constables who has been investigating this says as many as 5 million vehicles could have had fraudulent inspections, which would represent about two-thirds of the registered fleet (per FHWA, the source for the figures Statista gives).  Apparently one station generated 265,000 clean inspections in one year; just 20 of these could account for 5 million across the state.

The key to this scam is the lack of real-time monitoring--the database has not been programmed to flag stations that submit an unusually high number of inspection reports a day.  Since scammers have apparently been able to obtain licenses to inspect by stealing other people's identities, I have to question to what extent Texas DPS checks applicants' bona fides.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini



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