The Price of Safety

When we registered Jeff’s truck in Nova Scotia last week, they gave us 10 days to get our annual inspection done.

Today I drove with Jeff to work, and then took the truck into town for its inspection appointment. There was another lady waiting for her vehicle to be worked on, so unlike Ontario were we’d smile at each other and then sit and stare at the tv, we chatted it up the entire time. It’s strange just how many people we’ve met here have lived in Ontario at some point. This woman lived in North Bay for awhile and travels to Sudbury regularly to visit her grand daughter. She gave me lots of information about living here. She said the winters are nothing – she hasn’t bought a pair of winter boots in the last 20 years.

Unfortunately the mechanic didn’t have such optimistic news. To pass the new annual safety here in Nova Scotia (which everyone seems to be really grumbling about), we need to spend $750 before the 10 days is up. Most of the work is with the parking brake, and a ball joint, and a seal for the rear differential, and new brake shoes. Then he said he noticed we had tinting on the side windows and that is no longer allowed. I booked an appointment for Monday and then had to go to the Apple Auto Glass folks to figure out the scoop on the windows.

At Apple Auto Glass he said he knew that they made the annual vehicle inspections much more strict and that they no longer tint the windows to the right and the left of the driver. He wasn’t sure if there was a degree of tinting that was allowed so he sent me to the Access Nova Scotia building to find out the actual law (it’s like a provincial government service building – that is where the license bureau is). There they said the provincial government put it all in the in hands of the mechanics and they are the only ones with the book of regulations. We decided just to remove the tinting so it wasn’t going to be a problem. It was added by the last owner of the truck. I think if it was original to the manufacture of the vehicle, it would have been fine.

So another wait while the glass technicians took care of it. They weren’t busy at all so they went right to scraping it off with a razer blade. It was only $22.

This new annual inspection program seems like a pain in the ass, but I guess it is somewhat comforting to know all the other vehicles with you on the road are fixed up every year. The lady I chatted with in the waiting lounge said it really has taken a lot of older vehicles off the road.

On the other hand, Jeff said the guys he was chatting with today said they know of mechanics who will give you an inspection sticker for $50 without the actual inspection. 88|