DENHAM SPRINGS — Cathy Hibbard worries about the future of her business and about road safety as the legislature considers largely eliminating inspection stickers.
She and her husband Harold Hibbard own a vehicle inspection station on Range Avenue in Denham Springs. They say House Bill 1085 will cripple their business.
MORE: Bill to eliminate inspection stickers advances to Senate
Cathy Hibbard said inspection stations in other parts of the state will be hit worse.
“A lot of stations – at this point, they are shutting down,” she said.
It will be different in Livingston Parish, where Hibbard is located, and for East & West Baton Rouge, Ascension and Iberville parishes. Those parishes must conduct emissions testing on vehicles to comply with a federal order related to the Clean Air Act.
Hibbard said station operators in this area want to know exactly what that means they will be doing after the law goes into effect.
“July 1, what am I supposed to do?” she asked.
Hibbard has been asking lawmakers, the state Department of Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency how emissions testing and certification will be handled in the parishes where they are required.
“Enforcement now is the sticker. How are they going to enforce the emissions test?” she said. “We’re just very frustrated.”
UWK reached out to DEQ for information on emissions testing procedures, but as of publication, no one has responded.
Janice Biggs, who manages the Hibbards’ station, said she is already seeing changes to people’s vehicles in anticipation of inspections being eliminated.
She has seen vehicles with “blacked out” front windshields. That kind of tint is illegal and inspection stations have to reject vehicles that have it.
Biggs said it’s not uncommon for people to come in for inspections with tires bald enough to be dangerous. Drivers find a way to replace them to keep inspection stickers current, which keeps them from having to pay for an expired inspection sticker ticket.
Windshield damage, a frequent occurrence for Louisiana drivers, also won’t get fixed if it doesn’t put drivers at risk of a failed inspection, she said.
“If you’re not accountable to get a new windshield, you’re not going to do it,” Biggs said.
Biggs said Gov. Jeff Landry focusing on the inconvenience of getting an inspection sticker is short-sighted.
“He ought to be thinking about the safety of the people,” she said. “I don’t want to be riding around with some of the unsafe vehicles that are going to be on the road,” she said.
Harold Hibbard said he sees five or six vehicles a day fail inspection. People have come in for inspections with wires sticking out of their tires or with malfunctioning brakes. If the bill passes, those people will be less inclined to prioritize repairs, especially as budgets continue to be stretched.
“It’s not going to be good,” he said.
Bills to eliminate inspection stickers have come up for consideration in the legislature for years. They have failed.
This session, Landry has made the bill a priority, mentioning it in the address he gave to lawmakers when the session opened. This week he highlighted the House approval in a Facebook post.
“We were already told it was going to pass,” Cathy Hibbard said. “A lot of politics are involved.”
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