Comment Log Display

In the proposed changes to heavy vehicles, the discussion of backup
vehicle exemptions included proposals to require snap tests every 6
months instead of annually.

This fails to recognize that backup vehicle exemptions limit those
trucks to being driven no more than 1000 miles per year.  Thus a
snap test every six months would require a test every 500 miles, or
less than one tank of diesel fuel.  This would put an undue
hardship on the owners of these trucks due to the high cost of the
snap tests on older trucks.  In our case the tests are $160 per
truck because we cannot drive them into Bakersfield since this
would require 100 miles roundtrip, thereby greatly reducing the
mileage the truck can be driven.  Also, there is little liklehood
that there would be significant reduction in emissions through
increased monitoring due to the low mileage involved.

The mileage limitation originally was imposed to accomplish two
purposes:
1) Reduce the overall emissions from the trucks by greatly
restricting their mileage.
2) Enable small businesses to continue using equipment that they
could otherwise not afford to replace.

Increasing the frequency of snap tests on these vehicles to every 6
months would put additional burdens on small business owners,
driving them out of business.

Chris Hall