Old vehicles will rest in Texas

In Texas, a new bill named “accelerated vehicle-retirement program” was passed aiming to eliminate older vehicles that do not meet federal clean-air standards. In January, although the expected month was December, owners of ten year old and older vehicles in Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston will be given $3,500 to replace their cars. And for the program to be easy, new car dealers will be tasked to control it.

The program will require the car owners to bring their old cars to dealerships and get a voucher to buy a new vehicle or one that is used not more than two year according to officials. Before the dealership and voucher idea, the owners would have been requested to go in a state or country office first.

“But dealers are the ones who know how to read a title, how to do the paperwork involved in a trade or sale,” said Drew Campbell, president of the New Car Dealers Association of Metropolitan Dallas, and a participant in meetings to develop the program. “What the state is concerned about more than anything else is how do we make this process as clean and simple as we can.”

Other rules and requirements of the program will be completed and provided by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in early December.

“The later start date will probably work out best,” said state Sen. Kip Averitt, R-Waco, who sponsored the bill that created the program. “They plan to have everything online and ready to go, but because we will be pushing into Christmas – when people are distracted by the holidays – they thought it would be best to do the kickoff in early January.”

The program is voluntary subjecting vehicles with age ten years and more to be taken off the road because they emit 10 to 30 times more than new vehicles.
To qualify, your vehicle must meet these following conditions:
1. Must be at least 10 years old and gasoline-powered.
2. Must have been registered in your participating county for at least 12 months before you apply for a voucher.
3. Must have passed a Department of Public Safety motor-vehicle safety inspection or safety and emissions inspection within 15 months of application.
Well, if ever I live in Texas, a new Acura CL (equipped with quality Acura CL belts) will be my new vehicle choice after I put to rest my old vehicle. The handling and performance is just great that I cant take my hands off it.