Proposed Law: Garages as Testing Centers

Nobody enjoys going to the "testing center" to get their annual test for the car taken care of. For some it is hard to understand what the testers want you to do as they scream out instructions gruffly from beneath the car or from someone else outside of the car, for others the lines are inconvenient or the location or whatnot. Some dont think it is horrible, but I have never heard anyone express anything but displeasure about these vehicle testing centers.

Minister of Transportation Miri Regev is working on a proposal that would allow registered car garages to provide testing services for the annual registration of the car. Decades ago car garages were allowed to do this but back in the 1980s that was discontinued due to what was thought to be a conflict of interests.

Funnily enough the conflict of interest was dual sided. It was a concern the testing centers would fail cars in order to get more business to "fix" those problems and to then re-test. The other concern was that garages would be lenient on their customers and pass cars that should not necessarily be passed. 

Regardless of the conflict of interests, Minister Regev is pushing to go back to the system of having registered garages deal with the testing as well. Regev said this will be a tool in the fight to bring down prices. Instead of about 70 testing centers around the country, there would be much more competition with about an expected 1500 garages that can also do testing. Increased competition usually means better pricing. Additionally with so many testing options available, getting the test will be much more convenient - shorter lines, garages that might be closer to home or office and more convenient..

Being that this used to be the system in place and was shut down by the courts due to the conflict of interests, I wonder if this will be allowed to pass now. It sounds good for the customer in several ways, but if it brings back that conflict of interests that could be a problem.

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