ARC congratulates govt decision to roll out WoF emissions testing

After two years of lobbying government, Auckland Regional Council today congratulated the Government on its decision to introduce nationwide mandatory vehicle emissions testing as part of the Warrant of Fitness from 2006.

ARC chair Gwen Bull said the decision was a triumph for all those who had been demanding emissions testing to improve Auckland’s air quality since the ARC’s 0800 Smokey campaign two years ago.

“Public pressure to stop the estimated 250 deaths annually from vehicle emissions has brought this decision about,” Cr Bull said.

“This is a tribute to the 43,000 calls to 0800 Smokey to report polluting vehicles, the 40,000 Big Clean Up members who pledged to get their cars regularly serviced, the 2000 people who sent Big Clean Up postcards to the Minister of Transport asking for emissions testing, and to groups like Clean Air Auckland who have actively protested about Auckland’s air quality and lobbied the government to take action,” she said.

“We applaud the efforts of the government and look forward to working closely with them to bring emissions testing in as fast as possible.”

A NIWA study commissioned by the ARC and released last month showed that only 120 out of the 40,000 cars tested were without a WoF for more than six months, indicating that emissions testing as part of the WoF would pick up the majority of polluting cars.

The study also showed that regularly tuned cars were low emitters regardless of age, and that just 10 per cent of the cars tested were responsible for over half the carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbon emissions, and 40 per cent of the total oxides of nitrogen emissions.

The findings of the study were sent to the government along with a letter appealing for mandatory emissions testing in light of the new evidence.

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