Motorists Use Smog Hot Line to Report Smoking Vehicles

Michael Carranza’s commute to his job as a bank clerk in Simi Valley is usually uneventful--unless an aging clunker belching smoke gets in his face.

When the aroma from a car’s exhaust gets so bad he can’t take it anymore, the Moorpark man doesn’t simply switch lanes. He grabs a pen, jots down the license number of the offending vehicle and reports it on a new anti-smog hot line.

Like Carranza, an increasing number of motorists peeved by pollutant-spewing vehicles on Ventura County’s streets and highways are choosing to do more than just grin and bear it. In less than a year, the county’s Call Off Smog hot line has logged more than 2,500 reports from citizen smog busters who decided to take action.

“I might feel bad about it for a second,” Carranza said. “But we are all paying the consequences for pollution. People should keep their cars properly maintained.”

The anonymous tip will bring the owner of the offending vehicle some friendly advice from officials in the county’s Air Pollution Control District: Get your car fixed or risk getting a ticket.

The hot line, started in May, is part of a two-pronged program aimed at reducing pollution. For 13 months, the county has contracted with the California Highway Patrol for one sworn officer to seek and ticket smoking vehicles on county highways.

In his first year of duty, the smog cop issued 1,214 citations that raised more than $100,000 in penalties, said the APCD’s Al Danzig, who supervises both efforts. He also issued 246 verbal warnings to have vehicles fixed and 495 tickets requiring motorists to fix exhaust problems to avoid paying a penalty.

But less certain is whether both programs are actually helping to reduce pollution in Ventura County.

Danzig said the program’s effect on air quality is not easily measured because smog is affected by wind, temperature and other conditions.

But he and other APCD officials feel it is helping increase public awareness about excessive vehicle emissions. And they believe pollutants slowly are being reduced.

“It’s just a thimbleful of reduction, but if you have enough thimblefuls it begins to make a difference,” he said.

An advertising campaign is being planned for this spring to increase public awareness of the hot line, which averages about 280 calls a month, Danzig said.

Callers are asked to report the license plate number and a description of the smoking vehicle, as well as the date, time and place it was observed, Danzig said. All callers remain anonymous, he said.

Using Department of Motor Vehicle records, APCD employees then send a form letter to the registered owner stating that a citizen has observed their vehicle smoking excessively, Danzig said. Owners are informed that they could pay penalties if stopped by the county’s smog cop and are advised to get their cars fixed.

But compliance is voluntary, Danzig said, and only 33% send the form back saying the problem has been fixed. People react differently to getting busted by other motorists, he said.

“There are some who perceive it as Big Brother watching over you, and they are not happy,” he said. “But other people thank you. We’ve had them swinging both ways.”

A Ventura resident, who asked that her name not be used, always keeps a pen and pad of paper handy in her car and has reported at least 25 vehicles to the hot line. Sometimes she goes out of her way to get a license plate number, she said.

“Some are actually smoking so much that I have to pull up real close behind them so I can read the license plate,” she said.

The woman decided to become involved because she remembers the smog-choked San Fernando Valley she left nine years ago to move to Ventura County, she said. Most of the transgressors she sees are elderly people driving aging sedans, the woman said. “If one is slightly smoking, I have no problem,” said the woman, who runs her own home repair business. “But when I see cars that are from the late ‘60s or middle ‘70s belching stuff, it’s just, like, give me a break.”

Carranza said his criteria for reporting a vehicle is if he can see and smell the smoke.

“When you see a car driving down the street with smoke billowing out of it, you know it needs to have something fixed,” he said.

The program is valuable because it reminds motorists who might not otherwise take care of their cars to seek repairs, he said. “It’s helping to educate people,” he said.

But APCD officials admit there are still kinks in the program. Citizens sometimes transpose license numbers, resulting in advisory letters being sent to the wrong people. There are also the pranksters who report the license numbers of acquaintances as a joke, Danzig said.

And a proposal to permanently remove older cars from the road by buying them back from owners has never materialized because of a lack of funding, he said. In Los Angeles, the Unocal Corp. donated money to buy more than 8,000 pre-1975 model cars for $700 each. Participation of car owners in the program would be voluntary.

“We don’t even consider it here because we don’t have the dollars for the program,” Danzig said.

But the biggest disappointment for air pollution district officials has been a flap over how fines are distributed, Danzig said.

Officials had hoped the $94,000 cost of running the program would be subsidized through penalties from citations written by the CHP officer. But after a year-long fight with the state attorney general’s office over how the money should be distributed, the APCD received only 7.5% of penalties, or about $15,000 for 1992, Danzig said.

A new law that became effective Jan. 1 guarantees that the district will receive 50% of penalties this year, he said. “We’re hoping to see about $90,000 this year,” he said.

The contract with the CHP is currently funded with revenues from the county’s $4 fee affixed to vehicle license registrations, he said.

For his part, CHP Officer Craig Williams said he has noticed a difference in the number of smoking vehicles on the road after one year on the job.

“When the program started, a lot of the buses were smoking, and now you have a hard time finding them,” Williams said.

About 60% of citations go to bus and commercial truck drivers, but he is likely to ticket any gas-powered car or small truck that emits visible smoke, Williams said. For owners of passenger vehicles, the first offense is a “fix-it” ticket that carries no fine if the vehicle is repaired. Subsequent tickets carry fines of up to $250.

For owners of larger trucks, the first offense carries a $250 fine. Subsequent offenses go up to $5,000.

“Most of the truck drivers don’t mind, because they don’t get the ticket,” Williams said. “The company gets the ticket.”

While air pollution district officials said they have no specific evidence to show the programs are working, they noted that air quality has steadily improved in recent years.

Ventura County has not called a first-stage smog alert since 1989. And in 1992, the district issued only one health advisory, contrasted with five in 1991 and 1990. The county exceeded federal health standards for ozone, the primary component of smog, only 10 times last year, contrasted with 31 days for the same period in 1991 and a 10-year average of 51 days.

Mike Stubblefield, spokesman on air quality issues for the Sespe group of the Sierra Club, said he approves of the Smoking Vehicle Program and has used the hot line to report polluting vehicles.

“Every little thing helps and these are just two more pieces of the puzzle,” he said.

FYI

To report the license number of a vehicle that is emitting excessive smoke, call 1-800-559-SMOG. The toll-free hot line is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.