As the owner of a repair shop, I find it amusing to find out about new vehicle inspection laws by reading the newspaper. Why didn’t some state agency notify my garage of the new laws coming into effect?

So the mechanic will have to sign and print his name on the sticker for accountability? We have been signing the stickers all along. And the stickers are numbered and only issued to inspection stations. The state knows where those stickers all go.

Stickers are a joke.

Why do I have to shoulder the liability of a state program?

It takes a year to get a test date for a new employee to be registered as a vehicle inspector. Total time for a state inspection can be up to an hour per vehicle. And if I fail a vehicle, the owner often accuses the shop of trying to sell work, which takes more time lost from the day to show the customer the truth. And there are still all kinds of junk on the road (people have friends).

Inspections are at the judgment of the mechanic. How well is that brake line secured? Will that rusty brake line fail? I see quotes from other shops using stickers as a way to generate repair bills in the thousands of dollars. How much of the work is actually necessary?

I believe the answer is to have a facility that only does inspections and has nothing else to sell the customer.

Douglas DeGroat, New Gloucester