2024 05 30
Cars on highway driving into the sunset. Chicago, Illinois. March, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
While on a long jog this morning (brag) I was reminded of something that reeeeally annoyed me before I started driving an electric car (brag).
Running past the abandoned former emissions testing facility in Bucktown where I used to take my Ford Focus, the frustration came back to me and reminded me about why sometimes government logic can be super annoying. Not wanting this to be a political rant, I’ll keep it brief, as I’m likely getting some details wrong anyway since I’m going off years-old memories at this point.
During the previous Illinois (Republican) governor’s term, the state outsourced the operation of all its car emissions testing facilities, likely arguing small-government efficiencies or whatever. Surely, some loyal big shot operator who just so happens to spend big come political donation season got awarded the contract to take over operations of the entire state’s facilities.
One day, I opened my mail to discover it was time to take my trusty Focus in for its test. Unbeknownst to me, the conveniently located facility that was roughly one mile from my house and central to the homes of some 3 million other fellow Chicagoans was no longer an option. Instead, the closest facility to me was now inconveniently located over 10 miles away in suburban Skokie. Confused as to why Chicago (far and away the largest city in the state) no longer had a single facility available to its residents, I did some digging to figure out what was going on. Sure enough, the state outsourced the service, as mentioned, and the new operator was following the state-mandated requirements as efficiently as they could to maximize their profits.
Facilities need to be within x miles of x people, yada yada, plug all the data into the computer and Skokie is now where every Chicagoan needs to drive their car to get an efficiency test to, you know, make sure they aren’t polluting the environment. When you consider the added miles 3 million Chicagoans now need to drive, whatever benefits we are getting from taking a few dirty cars off the road are now likely a net negative because of all the extra driving. Then, when you consider how much money the state is “saving” by outsourcing this service, you need to consider all this extra wear and tear on the roads, additional accidents, wasted hours, etc, from people driving more trips and all those savings likely go out the window as well. Sure, my math is full of guesstimating here, but maybe you see my point.
It’s like government whack-a-mole: solve one problem and create a new, different problem. As long as your doner pals are getting a piece of the public pie, nobody is none the wiser!
-Clayton
