Story by: Linda Baker, Staff Writer at FreightWaves

New California environmental law puts thousands of truck registrations on hold. Starting this month, the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) will only register vehicles that comply with emissions regulations.

Of the tens of thousands of notices issued by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) for trucks with expiring registrations this month, around 4,000 informed owners their vehicles were noncompliant with state air quality regulations and therefore could not be registered.

The registration holds reflected a law that took effect January 2020 requiring trucks to comply with the Truck & Bus Rule, the state’s key regulation governing diesel emissions, or be subject to DMV restrictions.

The rule’s phased-in requirements mandated heavy-duty commercial vehicles meet particulate matter filter requirements beginning Jan. 1, 2012. Older heavier trucks had to be replaced starting Jan. 1, 2015.

All told, about 420,000 heavy-duty trucks are registered with the California DMV. Of those, about 80,000 are not compliant with current Truck & Bus Rule requirements, according to Bruce Tuter, manager of compliance assistance and outreach section for the California Air Resources Board (CARB).

As a result, thousands of new DMV registration holds are expected in February and each of the remaining months of 2020 as additional truck registrations expire.

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Source and credits: freightwaves.com /Clarissa Hawes /  iTrucker  / Mario Pawlowski