In response to a recent editorial, “Our View: Rural Maine needs more public transit” (Dec. 17):

I agree that more rural public transportation would be helpful, but because of the low population density it is difficult to provide economically.

A first step to improving mobility and reducing the economic burden in rural Maine is for the Legislature to eliminate the motor vehicle inspection requirement. The vehicle inspection requirement is a regressive tax that disproportionally affects the working poor, particularly in rural areas where there is no public transit. The beneficiaries of the program are repair shops, body shops and new- and used-car dealers – not the safety of the motoring public.

Eliot Cutler was on the mark in his 2010 campaign for governor when he proposed elimination of vehicle inspections. Only 15 of the 50 states require periodic vehicle safety inspections, down from 17 states in 2017, with Utah eliminating theirs at the beginning of 2018. The legacy of motor vehicle inspection primarily remains in the high-tax Northeast and mid-Atlantic states, where 11 of the 15 states that still mandate inspection are located.

I lived in Indiana in the early 1980s, and they eliminated theirs with no increase in accident rates. Vehicle accidents are caused by operating under the influence, inattentiveness, distraction, inexperience and carelessness – not from vehicle mechanical or structural failure.

Eventually, most vehicles are removed from the road because of rust. To honestly make that determination would require a detailed inspection and finite element analysis computer modeling of the vehicle’s unibody.

This would be a difficult task for a trained automotive mechanical engineer, to say nothing of an inspection mechanic. After all, if you have been to a Maine island recently, you will see that “island” cars don’t have much of a body left, and they are not collapsing on the road.

Carlton Wilcox

New Gloucester

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