Hello Car Guys & Gals. Recently there were three great pieces of legislation introduced by legislative friends of the Association of California Car Clubs (ACCC) and the Car Hobby in general.

Assemblyman Tim Donnelly introduce a bill AB 1613 that eliminates the requirement of getting a smog certification when selling your vehicle provided the vehicle has an up to date and valid smog certificate on file. The last thing that busy California families need are more hoops to jump through in order to do something that should be simple, like selling a car. The aim of AB 1613 is to remove one of those unnecessary hoops.

As the current law stands, in order to sell a vehicle and transfer its ownership, busy Californians must take their time and money to obtain a new smog Certificate of Compliance, even if the vehicle has been, and remains, in compliance with current smog laws. This law is redundant and only puts more of an unnecessary burden on California's citizens. In these tough economic times, Californians selling their cars should be able to keep more of that money in their pockets, instead of being forced to pay for a smog check that has already been done. The ACCC is in complete support of this bill as it will, in essence, simplify the transfer of ownership of vehicles while saving both the time and money of hard working Californians.

Assemblyman Kevin Jefferies introduced a bill AB 2289 that addresses some of the inequities in the SB100 Specially Constructed Vehicle Program. The following is a brief outline explaining the bill. AB 2289 is intended to simplify and add transparency to the existing program, by addressing these three issues:
1. Re-establishes the intent of the program, to provide a means to title and register Special Constructed Vehicles (SCV's) for individual hobbyists and enthusiasts.
2. Creates a "no one left behind" means to distribute the limited 500 per year exemptions, in the order applied for.
3. Provides a transparent means of assuring the public that in fact all 500 exemptions are given out each year. This is a great bill for car hobbyists looking to acquire these numbers and build their own hot rods, street rods, muscle, and kit cars.

Senator Doug LaMalfa has introduced SB 1224. This is a common sense bill that removes all 1976 through 1980 year/model vehicles (including collector type vehicles) from the smog inspection program. The majority of these vehicles are owned by families who are not in a position to afford a smog inspection. In these tough economic times, Californians should be able to keep more money in their pockets, instead of being forced to pay for unnecessary smog checks. Often times the price of repairs to pass a smog inspection on these older vehicles exceeds the value of the vehicle.

California families don't need more regulations and hoops to jump through in order to try and pass a smog inspection. In the November 2011 report from the California Inspection & Maintenance Review Committee (IMRC) it was noted that older vehicles have "A very low Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) fraction of the overall fleet. As a result, the cumulative emissions from these vehicles is probably insignificant". So these types of vehicles aren't a threat to clean air and really don't need to be smog inspected.

In closing, the ACCC is in complete support of these bills and encourages all car guys & gals to contact your local representatives by phone or by mail to let them know that that you are in support of these bills as well. Not sure who your representatives are…Contact us for a complete list of Senators and Assembly Members in your legislative districts. Thanks for your support in helping us in our fight to "Save Our Cars"!

by Rex Roden, President-ACCC • acccpres@gmail.com

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