Agency to spy on polluting cars

By: DAVE DOWNEY - Staff Writer | Friday, September 9, 2005 11:24 PM PDT ∞

Beginning in early 2006, remote sensing devices will be set up at freeway ramps in Southern California's most smog-prone counties in a one-year, $4 million experiment that aims to take smoking clunkers off the road.

The board of the South Coast Air Quality Management District voted Friday in Diamond Bar to approve the pilot program that will result in sensors being stationed at locations in Riverside, Orange, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties on a rotating basis. The devices measure a vehicle's emissions by shooting beams of infrared and ultraviolet light across a roadway while cameras capture license-plate numbers.

Officials say they will be able to collect information about the tailpipe exhaust from 1 million cars, or 10 percent of the passenger fleet in the four-county region that is bedeviled year after year with some of the nation's dirtiest air.

The campaign is expected to result in 1,000 to 2,000 of the worst-polluting, most poorly maintained older vehicles being either repaired or scrapped, officials said. But while the program targets old clunkers that somehow passed smog check even though they belch out thick clouds of black smoke, it is strictly voluntary in nature, as the air agency has no power to force someone to get rid of his or her car.

Rather, owners of the vehicles that cough out the most pollution will be contacted by mail and offered $500 for repairs through a local community college, or $1,000 cash to scrap their cars. Those who qualify as low-income residents would be offered an additional $2,000, or a total of $3,000, to retire their clunkers and buy cars that are state-certified as low-emission vehicles.

"Gross-polluting vehicles make up about 10 percent of the passenger vehicle fleet, and yet they are responsible for at least 50 percent of the air pollution from that fleet," said William A. Burke, governing board chairman. "For the first time, we will be identifying these gross polluters and giving motorists an incentive to repair or replace their vehicles."

Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2616, or ddowney@californian.com.

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