What’s All The Fuss About Automotive Inspection Fee Hike?

Have you ever been through the horrible experience of taking your car to one of the “mecanique” inspection centers in Hadath or other areas? The last time I went there 2 years ago I spent 6 hours there waiting in endless queues. The whole experience makes you pray for your car to pass the inspection not because you hate going to your mechanic, but rather because you want to avoid wasting another day over such silly task!

A while ago, it was announced that a new company called Autospect won the bid for running the existing inspection centers, and that part of its plan over the next year is to increase the number of inspection centers from 4 to 17 across the country which will help reducing the time needed to go through the inspection to 15 minutes, with the possibility to book your appointment online. This however will be at the cost of increasing the current fees from $22 to $33 out of which $5 are a new government tax.

Next thing we know, public transportation drivers started protesting the price hike by closing vital roads around Beirut every week or so. Disregarding how much I hate it when a group of people start blocking streets to make their points, I found their protests to be utterly weird.

Out of all the fuck ups in our country, this $11 or 16,500L.L  increase is seriously the reason why these drivers are wasting their precious time to organize these protests? I bet each and every one of these people earns more than that amount per day, but given how sensitive they are about such increase, how on earth can they afford sacrificing their income by going to such all day protests?

I personally think it must be one of two things, the protesters are either not public drivers but rather people who for some reason believe the new developments are not of their interests, or the transportation unions are simply controlled by some influencing figures/businessmen who didn’t win the bid.

Either ways, whoever is willing to reduce the inspection time to 15 minutes can take my money because I’m tired of finding a “simsar” each time I have to take my car to the Hadath center! Protesting against such progress is ridiculous, and no please don’t demand for the government to handle the inspection process instead!