PACKET EDITORIAL, March 6
Anyone who has ever suffered through one of those interminable lines at a motor-vehicle inspection station (and who among us hasn’t?) might greet with unbridled enthusiasm the latest user-friendly initiative launched by the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission.
The MVC (which used to be known as the Division of Motor Vehicles until the letters DMV became so universally reviled that the agency was more or less forced to change its name) has come up with a plan that will spare many motorists a return trip to that dreaded inspection line.
From now on, motorists whose vehicles fail inspection for any of 10 relatively minor safety conditions will no longer have a "failed" sticker slapped on their windshield, nor will they have to return for a re-inspection. Instead, MVC inspectors will simply advise them to have the condition repaired, because they can still be ticketed for a safety violation if they are pulled over by police.
Our first instinct and, we suspect, the natural reaction of untold numbers of New Jersey motorist who’ve endured hours-long inspection lines, only to fail because there was a fraction of an inch of water in one of the taillights was to welcome the MVC’s announcement. No longer would that thimbleful of water, or the ever-so-slightly cracked side-view mirror, or the burned-out light bulb over a license plate mean what it used to mean: a "failed" sticker, followed by the inconvenience of a trip to a local garage to get the condition repaired, followed by the far greater inconvenience of a trip back to the inspection station and another wait in line.
But safety advocates, led by AAA of New Jersey and some law enforcement officials, are less enthusiastic about MVC’s attempt at user-friendliness. They are concerned that some of the safety violations on the list the license-plate light, for example, or the third brake light in the center of the rear window should warrant immediate repair. AAA considers the third brake light an especially serious issue, while police point out that an inoperable license-plate light makes it difficult for them to run checks on cars pulled over after dark.
And absent a re-inspection requirement, they contend, there is no incentive for motorists to repair any of these safety violations. Despite the MVC’s warning "Although these are minor defects that can be easily fixed, motorists should understand that minor does not mean they should be ignored," said MVC Administrator Sharon Harrington opponents predict the overwhelming majority of motorists will, in fact, ignore them.
We agree. But we also think motorists whose cars fail for a minor safety violation shouldn’t have to go all the way back to an inspection station for a re-inspection and a new sticker. We think there’s a sensible compromise that would spare motorists this inconvenience and help ensure highway safety at the same time.
Licensed garages have been doing state-authorized motor-vehicle inspections for years. But while they are certified to conduct complete, soup-to-nuts inspections from document checks to emissions tests to comprehensive safety examinations they are not permitted to perform a simple re-inspection of a vehicle for a minor safety violation. Which begs the question: Why not continue to promote safety by requiring these violations to be corrected, but give motorists the convenience of letting private garages do the re-inspections?
Perhaps the governor and the Legislature, in their oversight capacity, could ask the MVC for an answer.

