Texas’ auto safety inspections are no help, so let’s scrap them

Cars without functioning brakes, lights and other safety features pose a seemingly obvious danger to highway drivers in Fort Worth and statewide.

Requiring regular inspections to ensure the functioning of basic safety features seems like prudent public policy — but research finds no evidence that safety inspections actually increase driver safety.

Consequently, Texans received no demonstrable highway safety benefit for the $2.4 billion they spent from 2005 to 2014 on the state’s mandated auto safety inspections.

The Texas Senate’s Natural Resources & Economic Development Committee has approved Senate Bill 1588, which would eliminate this unnecessary safety inspection.

The bill awaits action by the full Senate.

The legislation would remove the $7 fee paid to a station performing the inspection, which would save Texans $130 million annually or $1.2 billion during the last decade.

There would not be changes to the vehicle emissions inspection required in air quality non-attainment counties such as Tarrant County, nor to the associated inspection station revenue for services rendered.

Texas’ safety inspections date to 1951.

By the 1970s, some 30 states plus the District of Columbia had inspection programs, but that number has declined since then.

With Mississippi abolishing its program in 2015, Texas is one of just 16 states still requiring inspections.

Researchers often use state traffic fatalities, injuries or accidents in a year to study the effect of state policies on traffic safety.

A study analyzing state data from 1981 to 1993 to evaluate safety inspections found that inspections had a small and insignificant effect on fatalities and injuries.

Inspections might fail to reduce highway fatalities for several reasons.

One is the potential for offsetting behavior on the part of drivers: Most drivers slow down when heavy rain or snow makes roads treacherous, and they might drive more cautiously if a headlight is out.

Mechanical defects cause surprisingly few accidents, limiting inspections’ potential to save lives.

Improvements in auto design and parts reliability appear to have reduced the frequency of accidents caused by mechanical failure compared to the 1950s.

Most states without inspections authorize law enforcement personnel to ticket drivers if a car’s safety features are not functioning.

Ticketing cars in need of repair reduces the incremental effect of inspecting all vehicles.

To untangle why mandatory inspections failed to improve safety, another study examined registration of older vehicles that are more likely to require repairs.

Effective and legitimate inspections should reduce the proportion of older cars registered in a state.

Yet this did not occur, providing further evidence of inspections’ ineffectiveness.

Periodic inspections suffer from several unavoidable weaknesses.

Annual inspection only ensures that covered parts function one day, or several minutes, out of the year.

The more promptly people replace covered parts to keep themselves and their families safe, the less inspections can accomplish.

Regular, fully anticipated inspections are particularly vulnerable to fraud.

Drivers who do not wish to make necessary repairs can seek out stations that perform bogus inspections, and anecdotal evidence certainly suggests that this occurs, reducing any potential benefits from inspections.

Auto insurance companies have a wealth of data about accidents not generally available to academic researchers.

Insurers in states without mandatory inspections could offer premium discounts for voluntary safety checks, and even work with major auto repair chains to craft a standardized inspection.

Insurers’ lack of interest in voluntary inspections strongly suggests that they view poor maintenance as a small factor in the costs of accident.

Annual safety inspections cost Texans $7 upon inspection and $7.50 when registering their vehicles, which amounts to over $260 million annually.

Moreover, drivers incur a time cost of taking cars to and waiting during the inspection.

Mandatory vehicle inspection of basic safety features appears to be a reasonable policy, but the evidence reveals unavoidable problems with inspections.

While the state has a responsibility to maintain highway safety, legislators are also obligated to end ineffective programs.

To comply with research showing Texans waste money to fund unnecessary auto safety inspections, elimination of these inspections and all associated fees should be quickly accomplished.

This story was originally published May 2, 2017 at 7:27 PM with the headline "Texas’ auto safety inspections are no help, so let’s scrap them."