DEQ

DEQ Susnset Station. Lane 1 at the top, lane 8 at the bottom.
Took darling daughter's car to the DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality) Sunset station today for its biennial emission test (Biennial means every two years. Semiannual means every six months. Biannual is one them newspeak words that means whatever you want it to mean. Unless it doesn't. You get all this extraneous information because I looked it up because I didn't know.)
    I went by there yesterday afternoon but cars were backed up halfway down the street and I did not want to wait. This morning I dragged myself out of bed and actually got there before noon. There was still a line, but it hadn't made it out onto the street yet.
    This time I was prepared and brought a book to read, but by the time I had gotten the book open and found my place, it was time to play monkey-move-up. The line moved quick enough that it wasn't even worth turning the car off between creeps. It helps that the engine is quiet and smooth enough that it's hard to tell if it is even running.
    Get to the head of line and hand my paperwork to the director. He checks the VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) and then asks me to open my door and he runs a scanner over something on the door jamb. Now he surveys the lot and directs me to cabin number 4, er, lane number 8, the last lane on the lot.
    There are no cars enqueued there, just one being examined inside the building. They have a new procedure here. For some reason I thought it was only being done at lane 8, but I really don't know. Anyway, they've got a kiosk with a touch screen and a credit card reader. Read the instructions and push the virtual buttons. First thing I see is a Windows error message. "Program has encountered an error. Press Continue or Quit." Post-it note stuck above the screen suggests that you "Continue", so I do, or at least I try. I tap the continue button but nothing happens. I finally realize that I need to move the cursor so the tip of the arrow is over the button. Just being in the vicinity doesn't cut it. Now I tap and we move along. Yes, yes, yes, swipe the card, punch in my PIN (Personal Identifcation Number) and Yes, Yes, Yes, bill me for $107. Walk five feet over to the booth with the attendant (does being a woman make her a booth babe?) and collect my paperwork.
    I kind of doubt whether this emission testing is doing any good anymore. You might think that Oregon with it's vast forests and deserts and minimal population would not have a problem with smog, but evidently the hills around Portland and all the old cars conspired to make the winter air kind of funky, so they set up this testing business. I think it is only done for the Portland metropolitan area. Pretty sure the rest of the state does not have to deal with this.
    Back in the good old days, emission testing used to be kind of a pain. Testing involved inspecting your car (they actually looked under the hood to see if you had modified the engine and under the chassis to see if you had messed with the exhaust) and then they put a probe in the tailpipe and measured the actual exhaust gases. You never knew whether your car would pass or not, and that could be nerve wracking because you never knew how much it would cost to get it fixed if it failed. This was back in the days of the $600 carburetor.
    Nowadays all the cars have computers so testing involves simply plugging in a cable from the DEQ's computer into the socket  in your car and then letting the two computers talk to each other. In the 20 odd years I've been going through this rigamarole I have never had a car fail.
    The auto industry has pretty much got this emission business sorted out. Cars are all computerized now and they know when something fails. I suspect the number of cars that fail emission testing drops every year, and the number of cars that might be prone to failure, i.e. old, pre-computer cars, is also dropping. There are still hot rodders, but are there enough to really make a difference?
    I suspect that since the state went to all this trouble to set up this system, they are going to be loathe to dismantle it. Besides, with the economy the way it is, we need all the jobs we can get. Gads, kind of sad, given the kind of jobs we're saving. I wonder if anyone actually enjoys working there?