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Drive Clean Expands into Second Phase

January 12, 2001

• Ontario’s Drive Clean is part of the Ontario Government’s comprehensive air quality strategy. Vehicles are our largest domestic source of smog-causing pollutants. Drive Clean is reducing those pollutants, through inspection and maintenance of vehicle emissions systems.
• On January 1, 2001, emissions testing became mandatory for vehicles in 13 urban centres and their commuting zones from Peterborough to Windsor and the Niagara Region. The centres are: Peterborough, Barrie, Welland, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, Brantford, Cambridge, Guelph, Kitchener, Waterloo, London, Windsor and Sarnia-Clearwater-Point Edward.
• About five million light cars, trucks and vans now require emissions tests every two years, as part of the renewal process for vehicle registration. In addition to reducing smog-causing pollutants, Drive Clean will also result in an annual reduction of 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, as a result of reduced fuel use from efficiently operating vehicles.
• By the end of the year 2000, there were 1,640 accredited Drive Clean Facilities in the Drive Clean program area, with additional facilities being accredited daily.
• Ontario is also targeting smoking vehicles and vehicles with defective emissions control equipment on provincial highways, through the Smog Patrol, the Vehicle Emissions Enforcement Unit of the Ministry of the Environment.
• In the year 2000, the Smog Patrol issued 587 tickets under the Environmental Protection Act for offences such as emitting excessive exhaust smoke or having emissions control equipment that had been tampered with or removed.
• The Smog Patrol randomly inspected 762 heavy-duty trucks and buses and 2,950 light-duty vehicles during the year. The Smog Patrol inspects both vehicles registered in Ontario and out of the province.

Information on Drive Clean is available at www.driveclean.com or the Drive Clean Call Centre at 1-888-758-2999 (free).

Drive Clean is expanding in its third year Toronto

January 12, 2001

Ontario’s Drive Clean is expanding as it begins its third year of testing vehicle emissions. The program is reducing smog-causing pollutants as it enters its second phase, Environment Minister Dan Newman said today.

On January 1, 2001, emissions testing became mandatory for vehicles in 13 urban centres and their commuting zones from Peterborough to Windsor and the Niagara Region. That brings the number of light cars, trucks and vans requiring tests every two years to about five million. Drive Clean tests became mandatory in the first phase of the program – in the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton-Wentworth Region – on April 1, 1999, as part of the vehicle registration renewal process.

By the end of the year 2000, the program had tested about 2.15 million vehicles and identified more than 313,000 that failed to meet emissions standards. Repairs to vehicles that failed their test account for the reduction in pollutants in vehicle emissions.

"I am very pleased by the results, particularly since Drive Clean is a cornerstone of Ontario’s comprehensive air quality strategy," said Newman. "Taking care of our vehicles is something that we can all do that makes an immediate difference to the air we breathe."

The minister noted that in 1999, Drive Clean’s first year, the program reduced smog-causing pollutants in the Greater Toronto Area and Hamilton-Wentworth Region by 6.7 per cent. "I am sure that we are going to have similar success when we complete our analysis of the year 2000 figures," Newman said. "And that means we will be on target for a 22 per cent reduction in smog-causing pollutants by the end of 2004 with our expanded program."

Information on Drive Clean is available at www.driveclean.com or the Drive Clean Call Centre at 1-888-758-2999 (free).