For decades, PA residents have been forced to deal with annual state inspections to ensure that the vehicles they are driving are safe to operate.

Since 1929, PA has required that residents get their cars inspected. Up until 1983, the inspection was required to be twice a year until being changed to once a year.

As of 2023, only thirteen states have continued requiring an annual vehicle inspection. Now, lawmakers in PA are introducing a bill to change inspection from annually to when a vehicle is sold or has its titles transferred.

The bill was proposed by Democratic Senator, Marty Flynn of Scranton. He stated, “Most cars on the road are newer these days,” and therefore wouldn’t need to have an annual inspection.

Also proposed in the bill, the cost of the vehicle inspection would increase by fifteen dollars. However, the bill will not affect county-mandated inspections. Therefore if the bill was passed, residents of Allegheny County would still need to do their annual inspection.

While the bill is appealing to many PA state drivers, some residents are worried about the quality of older vehicles being driven on the road. With the amount of recalls happening with Ford, Jeep, and other car manufacturers, there’s concern that some residents will not follow through in having the vehicles fixed.

AAA has not not raised concerns about the bill yet in regards to safety and they are currently conducting a study to see how safety will be affected.