Looks like Pep Boys and their scooter supplier, Baja Inc. are finally being penalized for their questionable scooters in the largest Clean Air Act case ever. The complaint alleges that Pep Boys sold over 241,000 illegal vehicles and engines (45 models!). Hopefully this publicity will spark an NHTSA investigation (the Clean Air Act action ignores the safety and road-worthiness of these vehicles.) Baja (not to be confused with Bajaj) was apparently in dire financial straits already, their fine was reduced.
I live near a Pep Boys and always marveled that they sold fifth-rate “off-road-use” vehicles in the middle of the City of Chicago. I see grownups AND little kids riding those scooters and minibikes on city streets and sidewalks all the time… no helmets, no license, no training, no lights (let alone turn signals), on bikes spewing blue smoke, wondering “How does a huge national chain like Pep Boys get away with selling those things?” I guess now we know.
if you think thats bad in Alabama, they can sell up to a 250cc bike without having a dealer license… in Florida where I am at we have two Pep Boys and they sell the hell out of those 50cc bikes but the law in Florida was changed, if you have a 50cc you can only ride on Secondary roads (35 mph only)
But really down here the scary thing is these pedal bikes people put those 80cc 2 stroke engines on they are everywhere down here and all the drunks with DUI’s have them and now they are Riding those around Drunk and crashing on the roads …
A $5million fine sounds like a lot until you figure that pencils out to about $20 per unit sold (less if it’s more than a quarter million units sold). I’m sure their profit margin on each unit was more than that. Sounds like a slap on the wrist to me, but they stop selling that crap, I guess the result was achieved.
Too many business just don’t figure in the value of preserving the environment into their calculations; environmental degradation is just a ‘social cost’ borne by someone else down the road (breaking news: BP chose not to install an automatic cutoff switch [like the kind that is standard on North Sea oil wells] on their leaking wellhead because of the added cost, and they felt it ‘wasn’t necessary’). I think the fine should’ve been enough to deprive Pep Boys of any profit from the sale of those motors and vehicles.