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Hey Jamey,

There's no 'if' about it; they're out there, by the dozens, possibly hundreds, and I agree that we are better off without them. My problem with STAR is that it takes a 'shotgun' or 'atom bomb' approach to weeding them out, and a small but significant number of innocent techs are being hit in the process. It also occurs to me that the process could still be manipulated by crafty techs who know how to provide what STAR wants to hear.

This 'grading at a distance' technique is simply not accurate enough to avoid the inevitable lawsuits and other forms of dissension, from both sides of the barbed-wire fence. This is due to its overly simplistic, 'idealized' view of the smog-check process presented in the manual to which you so often refer, and it is destined for catastrophic failure in its present state.

Talk atcha later,

Michael Barry
Technician
Quick Stop Smog & More
Sacramento, California, USA