General Assembly auditors recommended last week that North Carolina should scale back inspection requirements for Tar Heel automobile owners.We’d say General Assembly auditors are onto something with that conclusion.
Automobile inspections in all of North Carolina’s 100 counties focus on safety, with another 48 counties also performing emissions testing. All told, it adds up to a pretty penny out of taxpayers’ pockets – $141 million.

The question on the table is what kind of bang we’re getting for that buck.
The answer is far from clear.
The state’s Program Evaluation Division says the inspections aren’t effective and should be scrapped, or at least changed to exempt cars three years old or newer.
Again, we feel that conclusion is on the right track.
Unanswered questions
There are, of course, many questions that need to be answered.
For example, statistics on traffic accidents show less than 1 percent of wrecks are caused by vehicle defects. (more…)