The Department of Environment says some car owners by bribing vehicle inspectors, falsifying technical inspection papers and other fraudulent practices are trying to circumvent new measures introduced in Tehran to curb air pollution by banishing clunkers from the capital.
As per the Air Pollution Reduction (APR) scheme launched last month by the Tehran Municipality, old cars have been banned in the sprawling city, and violators are fined in one more attempt at improving air quality.
All four and two wheelers in the metropolis are required to go though automotive inspections and receive technical conformity that shows the vehicle meets automotive and emission standards.
To this end, the Tehran Vehicle Technical Inspection Bureau has been conducting random field checks of vehicles’ compliance with the emission standards.
According to the director of DOE’s National Climate Change Office, Masoud Zandi, many vehicles, especially trucks that got their technical inspection permits in the provinces other than Tehran, when checked by field officers in the capital failed to meet the recognized high standards.
Zandi said the technical inspection tests should be carried out with accuracy. Simply put, if the tests are not conducted strictly the air pollution reduction plans like the APR or any other measure in this regard would be meaningless.
CEO of Tehran Vehicle Technical Inspection Bureau Navab Hosseini also says many commercial vehicles which have gone through technical inspections outside Tehran, do not meet the emission standards.
Random Tests on the Road
“Over the past two months, over 1,300 diesel-fueled commercial vehicles were tested by the bureau. The technical inspection permits of over 26% of them were revoked. Almost 16% of the drivers had not even bothered to get their vehicles tested (a mandatory requirement for all motor vehicles across the country) and failed to present the technical papers.”
In addition, among the 226 heavy-duty vehicles quick-tested by the traffic police along roadways, over 20% did not meet the standards and were highly polluting.
According to Hosseini, over 80% of commercial vehicles had their vehicles checked at centers outside Tehran.
He says either the tests are carried out ineffectively at the provincial centers outside the capital or the technicians doing the tests are bribed.
To address the issue, the DOE will dispatch inspectors to the provincial technical inspection centers to scrutinize and oversee their performance.
Tehran has been grappling with air pollution for decades. The situation gets worse when the cold season arrives since pollution is trapped closer to the ground suffocating residents in the metropolis, a phenomenon that is called 'temperature inversion'.
Experts say the smog can cause fatal asthma attacks, and trigger health problems for those with respiratory illnesses, children and the elderly.
Annually, around 12,000 air pollution-related deaths are recorded by the Iranian Legal Medicine Organization, with one-third of the fatalities in the capital.
