Gov. Charlie Baker does not view the weeks-long pause in motor vehicle inspections as a “public safety issue,” and he still expects the system will relaunch by this weekend, the governor said Wednesday.
The digital platform Massachusetts and seven other states use to conduct routine vehicle inspections has been down since Wisconsin-based vendor Applus Technologies was targeted in a malware attack on March 30.
Drivers who are due for annual inspections or those who recently purchased new vehicles have had to wait — and in some cases may now wait two months past expiration — to get the annual confirmation that their vehicles are viable to operate on Bay State roads and meet emissions standards.
Baker, who said earlier this week that he “fully expects” Applus to compensate dealers and service stations who have been financially impacted by the shutdown, said Wednesday that he does not yet see major safety impacts from the outage.
“If this thing was dragging on for a really long time, I’d start to worry about that, but if it’s a two or three week issue, it’s a tremendous inconvenience, but I don’t think of it as a public safety issue,” Baker said at a vaccine press conference at the Hynes Convention Center.
Law enforcement officials previously told the administration that motorists will not receive tickets for driving with a March inspection sticker that has now expired.
On Tuesday, the Registry of Motor Vehicles announced that motorists with existing stickers expiring in March or April will be granted until May 31 to get a new inspection. Those who purchased new vehicles registered on or after March 23 will have until April 30 to get an inspection, which typically must happen within seven days of registration. Drivers who had a recent inspection rejected and fall into a 60-day window to retest for free will gain one additional day for each day that the Applus system remains unavailable.
Citing information from Applus, the RMV said it expects the inspections systems to resume operating in Massachusetts by Saturday, April 17.
