ANNUAL VEHICLE SAFETY INSPECTIONS NO LONGER NEEDED STARTING WEDNESDAY
The new year will bring a major change in how Texas drivers handle their vehicle registration renewals.
Starting on Wednesday, a new law goes into effect that eliminates mandatory vehicle safety inspections for non-commercial vehicles in most counties in Texas. The new law, House Bill 3297 from the 88th Legislature, retains the annual $7.50 safety inspection fee paid at the time of vehicle registration, as it will now be labeled as the inspection program replacement fee on registration renewal notices.
Washington County Tax Assessor-Collector Cheryl Gaskamp, speaking during Monday’s commissioners court meeting, said this month was slow for her office, as she expects many people are waiting until the start of the new year to take care of their vehicle registrations.
Owners who are registering a new vehicle will pay a $16.75 inspection program replacement fee to cover the first two years of registration.
There are 17 counties in Texas that will still require vehicle owners to pass an emissions inspection. Those counties are Brazoria, Collin, Dallas, Denton, El Paso, Ellis, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Johnson, Kaufman, Montgomery, Parker, Rockwall, Tarrant, Travis and Williamson.
The law does not impact commercial vehicles, which will still need to undergo and pass annual safety inspections.
Hours at the Washington County Tax Assessor-Collector’s office in the courthouse are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, with titles processed from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Why is it not a good idea? Do you think actual mechanics inspected the vehicles? Nope not at all and the wait time also. Vehicle defects such as taillights and head lights ECT give law enforcement an excellent chance to pull these vehicles over for equipment violations and sometimes more things are wrong cause crooks don’t deal with maintenance and insurance. So it’s a two way street and I look to see many more arrests that started with a taillight out.
I do not think this is a good Idea to stop the annual inspections, I already see cars with one headlight, no brake lights and other issues sometimes the annual inspection is where the items are found and repaired. and they have just added the fee of $11.50 to the bill as a “Local Fee” so no cost savings to us. Bad Idea in my opinion
I see the same thing but some drivers could care less I guess, I do a walk around on my vehicles every other month, just to make sure things are working correctly.
Thanks
For real. I agree 100%. This is ridiculous. A vehicle is a lethal weapon as is and then not being maintained properly just adds to it. Kind of seems its going to hurt the shops that do the inspections too. If something needs to be fixed they can get it done and it helps their business as well. Looks like the state just wants more money from us and this was a way for them to get it and hurt small business. $11.50 doesn’t seem like much but collectively it is filling the states pockets. Wrecker trucks will be busy and hopefully peoples lives won’t be lost because of this unbelievable and thoughtless decision.