Deforest City Blues: Immediate discontent vs long-term benefits (and the red asterisk *) Pt 2

My gosh.

I just finished a short (and brilliant) post about coughing up (without a cruel grimace or cuss words) $116 to continue to ride on wheels for another year.

And mere seconds later, without warning, what did my wondering eyes behold?


["Hazy, lazy days of summer on Lake Erie": photos GH]

A red asterisk in the margin of the form. And when my eyes wandered down a bit farther I discovered the meaning of that red asterisk.

“Drive clean emission test required.” (For our Honda Civic).

“Ontario’s Drive Clean program requires emissions tests for vehicles every two years for registration renewal starting when vehicles are five model years old.” (Our 2005 Civic qualifies).

One, two, three...


I figured out pretty quickly I faced three options, or coloured doors, so to speak.

The Blue Door - Do not pay. Give up driving the car.

The Red Door - Fuss and fume. Go red in the face. Blame somebody. (A lot of people do this when faced with taxes, fees, and levies.) Use ‘government conspiracy’ in a loud, angry sentence in a letter to the editor. Then pay up.

The Green Door - Think about the benefits of controlling automobile emissions. Try to count up five benefits without using my fingers. Then pay up without a grimace, cuss words or shouting “damn revenuers! They dun got me agin.”

And is there a benefit to pay a fee every other year to see if my car is within allowable emissions guidelines and get a tune up if it’s not?


I think so. Let me just take a deep breath, then direct you toward a couple of links.

The first. Smog Alert Days, by the numbers. They have been decreasing in Ontario for the last few years. Cleaner cars likely have something to do with that.

The second. A map of Ontario shows that Deforest City, though in the middle of a toxic triangle, has good air quality today. Not ‘very good,’ but at least we’re not as bad off as Chatham and Grand Bend today.

More acceptable car emissions is likely an important factor.

So, I’ll pick the Green Door and pay my fee without cussin’ out them revenuers.

***

Are more clunkers off the road now than in the near past?

Could we still do better?

And just how do we get people to drive fewer miles per year?

.