Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, October 20, 1994 TAG: 9411180013
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-17 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Sticker shock: The task force on public safety recommends eliminating the annual inspection of motor vehicles, requiring them only when title is transferred. This would save consumers more than $25 million a year and drastically reduce state costs in monitoring the 4,000-plus stations performing inspections.
By comparing states that have them with those that don't, researchers have claimed for years to find no link between vehicle inspections and highway safety. Certainly, the change from twice-a-year inspections to once has been a convenience to motorists while doing no discernible harm to highway safety. In fact, the number of fatalities per million miles traveled on state roads has gone steadily down.
The inspection fee that started at 50 cents more than 50 years ago is now $10. That is hardly a money-maker for garages, but inspections generate other business that repair shops will fight to keep. In the absence of a public clamor, which hasn't been heard, legislators will listen to car dealers and garages.
More work for DMV: Last year, state newspapers exposed grave deficiencies in dealing with those scofflaws who managed to escape designation as habitual offenders, or drove with a suspended or revoked license. Based on 1992 data, the papers reported that the Division of Motor Vehicles had certified 14,316 people as the state's worst drivers, but only 3,248 had been declared habitual offenders by the courts.
While many of these cases are undoubtedly "address unknown," the problem seems to be the many who fall between the cracks in a system that depends upon overburdened commonwealth's attorneys' receiving DMV data and then getting offenders before a judge. The strike force would attack this by empowering the DMV to handle administratively the designation of a habitual offender as well as restoration of operators' licenses. It also would allow violators to pay fines at DMV offices. This seems very sensible.
One stop for truckers: The strike force also says DMV should assume responsibility for total regulation of trucking, taking over duties performed by the State Corporation Commission and the Department of Transportation. The SCC has similar ideas in mind, but understandably believes it should be the one-stop shop. Considering its convenient distribution of offices across the state, however, DMV would seem the logical agency in which to centralize trucking regulation. But if changes are to be made, it is the truckers themselves who will call the tune - as they always have.
Even the strike force didn't have the temerity to suggest examining the question of road-user taxes paid by trucks to see how they compared with the cost of building and maintaining roads to accommodate vehicles 30 times larger than your average Volkswagen. But it did recognize a problem in collecting fuel taxes by suggesting they be paid at the point of first sale in Virginia, which would reduce tax-collection points from some 5,800 to about 400. That seems very sensible, both in deploying state tax collectors for maximum benefit, and making certain that taxes paid by state motorists end up in state coffers.
Let's privatize: Despite a nearly 50 percent increase in the state's population since 1973, the number of patients in state-operated mental hospitals has declined from 8,346 to 2,610. But annual, per-patient costs are nudging $100,000. That seems high until you reflect on what private psychiatric hospitals charge, which can double that. The strike force recommends the state contract with private firms to operate all mental health and mental retardation facilities. It also would turn over child-support enforcement and adoption services to private contractors.
I would be over my head in assessing the cost and care advantages of private operators vs. state operators, beyond stating the obvious. That is, when the state is contracting for a service, it has a choice among competing vendors and every incentive to ride herd on those chosen. But that is academic. Legislators of both parties are going to listen to their constituents, and the merest hint of sweeping change will unite existing state employees and the families of their clients in defense of the status quo.
Culture vultures: The strike force has taken up another hot potato in the matter of state grants to nonstate museums and cultural attractions, such as the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Center in the Square in Roanoke and the Virginia Air and Space Museum in Hampton. I count 56 of these in the 1994-96 budget, ranging from $1 million to Poplar Forest, Jefferson's second home in Bedford County, down to a mere $4,800 for Pocahontas Presbyterian Church, wherever it may be. Total outlays for these nonstate entities is about $5 million a year.
Such grants, virtually unknown 20 years ago, have become a minor industry, with new claimants arriving at each budget. The strike force would require the secretary of education to establish guidelines to screen requests for money and to monitor its expenditure. Over time, it says the state should drop support.
But lawmakers (and even governors) enjoy the role of patron of the arts and sciences, and see lots of good politics in it. While I hate to see our legislators learning the pork game perfected by congresspersons, the overall effect of state grants to assist private groups develop worthwhile attractions is positive. In any event, it won't stop.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB