Today was inspection day for Mr. Truck, with a minor change in that my county of residence is now a part of the emissions inspection program. No big deal-I fully support maximum fuel efficiency along with minimal environmental impact. After all of the data was entered into the test unit, it had to tell Harrisburg how things went, so it dialed up, they chatted briefly, and all was finished in less than a minute.
When the mechanic handed me the bill-he pointed to a line item: $4.15 MCI phone call charge. I asked him what was up with that, and he pulled out his large book of official state rules (he was pointing out these changes since I had my inspection license). It seems that in addition to forcing garages to buy new equipment for emission testing every few years (the last evolution units were ~$15K), this unit has to be supplied with a phone line separate from and in addition to any and all voice, fax, or computer lines that the garage already has, even though it isn’t in constant communication. Even better is that garages have one choice of long distance carrier for these brief calls-MCI.
Ray showed me a recent phone bill-$1300 for a month with no call exceeding a minute, and per call costs ranging from $3.75 to $4.75 :eek:
This, my friends, is horseshit, sans horse. The asshats in Harrisburg who dreamed up this deal must have gotten a nice thank-you from MCI and the regional phone companies. Bastards.
So? What’s your point? THis is nothing new. California charges us somewherebetween $2-3 for dialing into the state’s computer for an emission test, though it doesn’t come in the form of a phone bill to the shop-the state charges the fee to the shop which is then passed on to us.
Just feel lucky PA is in medieval times and doesn’t yet require that your car be smogged on a dyno machine. Those cost upwards of $60K and require that your car be in motion for the duration fo the test.
My point is that one minute phone calls don’t cost two or three dollars unless you’re calling another planet. My point is that an additional phone line to a business costs around $35 per month before you lift the receiver, and it isn’t justified. My point is that if a legislature is going to mandate a certain carrier, then the volume of business should have forced a lower rate per call, but instead was usesd as an indirect way to screw everybody who owns a vehicle that requires inspection.
A buck here, a buck there-it’s like being murdered with nail clippers.
BTW, we have dynos. Depending on the age of the vehicle and county of registration it gets visual, OBD, tailpipe, and/or tailpipe dyno testing.