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A single digital program has been established in Ontario for emissions and safety inspections for heavy-duty diesel commercial, light-duty and passenger vehicles.
That program, DriveOn, is billed as being able to reduce fraud, ensure the safety of vehicles on roads, reduce emissions and save money for commercial vehicle owners. It started in July 2022 with facilities that previously tested emissions only. Motor vehicle inspection stations that currently perform safety inspections and issue yellow safety stickers (commercial inspections were able to apply starting May 9, 2024).
The current motor vehicle inspection program ends on Dec. 31. But to purchase and receive equipment before then, the DriveOn enrolment process was to be completed by June 1. An information session is available through the provincial government’s website.
The program, advocates say, will ensure the safety of vehicles on Ontario roads. Some hope that it will push out nefarious players and ensure legitimate safeties are given to qualifying vehicles.
“The idea that you can have a tractor-trailer that pulls 150,000 lbs. down [Highway] 401 that got inspected [in exchange] for two cases of beer is wrong,” said John Cochrane, interim executive director with the Automotive Aftermarket Retailers of Ontario, which has been helping Ontario shop owners move to the new program with guidance and regular updates.
There are further hopes that it may eventually lead to mandatory safety inspections of Ontario vehicles, whether every year or bi-annually, not just when vehicles are sold.
Cochrane explained that DriveOn will operate in the same manner as the now-defunct Drive Clean and operated by the same group, Parsons. Drive Clean started in 1999 and was scrapped in 2019.
“The idea is to modernize and computerize the inspection of vehicles,” Cochrane said in an interview, adding that nothing is changing as to how shops will certify a vehicle is safe. “What the province and Parsons want to make sure what happens is that vehicles that are inspected are properly inspected.”
That means the checks will be done the same way as before, just with a digital twist added by way of photos to verify the findings.
“You’re still going to be doing the physical inspection for play on the ball joints and play on the tie rods,” Cochrane explained. “There is going to be basically no change of a vehicle inspection. But what there is, is the recording of the vehicle inspection.”
There will be areas where technicians can note body defects, he added.
However, Auto Service World has received negative feedback from Ontario shop owners. They point to the Drive Clean program and wonder if their investment in DriveOn will end up like the one many shops made in Drive Clean, which was all lost following the end of the program.
For instance, the cost of digital equipment to perform inspections can be thousands of dollars. Many shops will need to upgrade their wi-fi capabilities to have coverage in testing areas, a requirement of the program.
For some shops, safeties don’t make up enough of their business so they told Auto Service World that they don’t plan to move over to this new program.
Cochrane called it a business decision shops need to make. But he believes it will be positive for a shop’s bottom line.
“I think that you’re going to have a lot more vehicle safety inspection business because a lot of the vehicles that have not been inspected properly are going to get inspected properly, and it will generate thousands of dollars of repairs,” he said, noting that for every 10 safety inspections his shop performed, about eight of them required mechanical repairs.
“So do you want to not get the mechanical repairs that are generated from an inspection?” he asked.
One shop owner questioned how many shops would invest in the program given that they already have a hard enough time finding technicians — are they prepared to pull a tech off the floor to perform these tests?
Nevertheless, Cochrane wants all Ontario shops to be part of the system that keeps vehicles safe on the province’s roads.
“I would like everybody to embrace this program,” Cochrane said. “It is going to have a learning curve. There’s no question about that. But once you’ve got through the learning curve, it’s going to make driving on Ontario highways safer.”
Speak up
Auto Service World has had shop owners reach out and ask if we’ve heard from others about the program — so we’re turning the floor over to you. Whether you have started the program, are in the process of getting equipment or staying out, let us know your thoughts in the comment section. Your fellow shop owners are looking for your insights.
Tell us:
- What has your experience with the new inspection program been like?
- Do you like the program?
- How has DriveOn impacted your business?
- What problems are you having?
- What success have you seen?
- If you’re not adopting the program, why?
- Do you think this program is a good idea?
- Do you think this program will work?
- What changes are needed to DriveOn?
- What issues, insights, challenges or opportunities you have found?
Use the comment box below or email adam@turnkey.media to leave your thoughts
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Comments
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I am nervous with Parsons being involved after the DriveClean fiasco. That being said, I need to register and perform safeties. The registration process is confusing and laborious. I have gone as far in the process as allowed and am waiting for Ministry approval, but is taking quite a while!
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While I think that vehicle safety on the road is paramount and avoiding faked safeties is a necessary step this enrolment is way too complicated for the average garage owner. The Ministry must realise this or they would not be offering so many information sessions on filling out the required documentation. The hours we have spent on this so far is excessive and we still do not have approval. I would prefer the the Ministry put their energies into shutting down garages which are run by an unqualified person, in some instances from a back-yard garage. There is no regulation on these places what so ever often run from their own home with no insurance and servicing neighbors cars
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So true and frustrating. Our shop is surrounded by probably 50 illegal shops within a 10km radius, all thriving. Nobody cares. Not the city, not the province and not the feds. Another good point that proves DriveON is a heavy-handed tax department that has nothing to do with “safety”. It’s all about the money.
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Hello. My shop will not be involved in this new government overreach. The program was updated a few years back, with the premise of stopping bad inspections. I suppose that did not work the way they hoped. So lets try a program based on a program that failed, ya that will work. The cost and responsibility is laid upon the shop owners again. The cost does not off set the benefit. The moment you you bring in a third party to be another layer of bureaucracy than it will be a failure. It is sad I have been doing proper Safety Inspections for close to 40 years , If they are done properly there is no problem.
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It’s so sad that bureaucrats are robbing what little is left of people’s credit. Where will it end?
I see the same outcome as you, failure.
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Drive on has made this program to prevent fraud. Thats good! However there is Auditors that need to be employed, so if the program is bullet proof of fraud that means auditors will have to show presidence for their wages by micromanging technicians mistakes. Thats bad. Technicians are not robots or engineers. We can easily miss something,make mistakes or pass something that in our opinion is safe but is no longer the same as it was orignially engineered. As long as we technicains do our due diligence we have rights. Its not a matter of perfection…
In 2014 pg. 1124, the superior court Honourable Mr. Justice Douglas articulated the legal test for negligence in any such case like a wheel off incident is as follows:
“To succeed in a claim of negligence a plaintiff must prove each element of tort. The basic element supporting of findings the negligence are of the following:
#1. There must be a duty of care arising out of the relationship between the parties.
#2. There must be a breech of that duty by some actual admission that constitutes a failure to observe the appropriate standard and care.
#3. That breech must cause the proven lost and damage.
The plaintiff must prove the defendant failed to meet the standards of care for a reasonable person. THE CASE LAW IS CLEAR IT IS NOT A STANDARD OF PERFECTION.”
For example a blatant hole in a frame is incompetence, but a plate underneath a “K” frame on an older Dodge Neon that was then re engineered with two thin 1 inch 18 guage steel strips that now has one missing, in my opinion is not a safety issue and does not require a frame replacement. Another Technician may disagree.-
And the auditors are not licenses mechanics, just lazy bureaucrats playing with software.
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I would remind everyone before the comments start rolling in, part of your enrollment agreement was not to disparage the program or face a lifetime ban….
That said, i just resubmitted my application for the third time due to the red tape involved with digging up paperwork for an 80 year old business. Like anything the government touches, its a little painful.
The whole thing feels a little like bringing a machine gun to a fist fight, and I definitely do not love the idea of someone working from home interrupting and auditing my inspections, and watching me on camera.
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Agree. Those Parsons execs all have mega mansions to pay for. Scaring us is the best way to secure taxes toll in smoothly.
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Also, if this is a “safety” program and not an authoritarian tax collection department, why for we have gag orders?
Someone needs to connect the dots between those in control.
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It has been a very long and involved and SLOW process to enroll. I am stuck at step #8 in the sign up waiting for a contract to be signed. It was supposed to take up to 10 business days but has now been a month +2 days and I cannot go further in the application or order equipment until it is signed. If the frustration with onboarding this program is any indication of how the program will run it’s not going to be fun.
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As long as we inspect and the necessary defective repair requirements that are definitely needed on a vehicle are actually getting done it will be better . I’m tired of seeing a vehicle on the road that I failed 2 days ago and with some serious issues then the vehicle owner gets 1/4 the work done and gets it on the road . Too many years of being the bad guy trying to uphold the standards .
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The premise is good in eliminating fraudulent repair facilities, however the MTO could have done this without harming all of the other facilities that are profesionally operated. It’s not to hard to figure out who the bad player are.
There are a couple of elements in this process that I find overreaching:
1) Why does the MTO need a tax compliance verification certificate from the federal government? The amount of time that’s been spent on this specific item is overwhelming and it’s still not complete! I’m not looking forward to the next multi hour phone call with the federal government.
2) The amount of insurance required is excessive for a smaller facility. The liability portion isn’t an issue but the comprehensive portion appears to be set up for OEM dealers that have 50 brand new vehicles on their lot. My insurance company estimates an increase of $500 to our policy to comply. When you’re doing less than 50 safeties a year that will result in a cost increase that will end up getting passed on to the customers. That’s not fair to Ontario consumers and the MTO needs to re-think this.
3) The new process does include a requirement to take a picture of the brake measurements. I havn’t tried it but suspect that it would be quite challenging holding a measuring tool while taking a picture with a tablet. On some vehicles the backing plate restricts where measurements can be taken putting the technician in an awkward position to begin with.-
My main concern is the also the extra costs to the customer. The costs to run back and forth to the router to upload pics for the bureaucrats and Parsons forced “fees” will for sure drive up inflation since it will be charged to every single truck in Ontario.
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We have always done safties at my facility for 30 years. Have never had any comebacks, always do the job correctly the first time. Now you want to change everything so that a mechanics licence means nothing any more. A terrorist company from the usa by the name Parsons has designed this program to help take away the rest of our rights. I do not agree with any of this. Now if we had a real government they would be able to use the exsisting system and just shut down shops like they are supposed to that dont do the job right. I do the job right and I will not be able to do these safties anymore because of this dictatorship that we now have. this program will destroy small bussiness and criple the entire industry. Thanks for nothing, and thanks for taking away my way to keep things safe on the road. Maybe everyone needs to wake up and realise this is a scam. A clean burning fuel would go along way, and maybe stop strip mining the planet to make all these emmisions control devices which destroy engines and cause more pollution then ever before. Think about all the manufacturing that goes on unnecesarily to replace all this crap that keeps destroying engines . Good fuel millage is impossible with these emmision divices, diesels are the worst. Nothing but a symphony to destruction. Nice Job.
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I am still trying to see if this is a Dog and Pony show, or is it a 3 ring circus? Both maybe? I must say, I feel really bad for the smaller folks, the 2 and 3 bay mom and pop Auto Repair Garages, the folks who do things the way they have for many many years. You know these shops, the ones that are family owned and quickly disappearing from the landscape. I was a little shocked when they first came out with a minimum of 5 million garage liability coverage, like who has that? Well we did, and shortly after they lowered it to 3 million dollars. Tell me how many smaller 2 and 3 bay garages have a policy like that, let alone the ability to fill out this complicated paperwork? I am the chair of our local Garage Owners Association and at our meeting in the middle of June, 10 of our shops have still yet to get approved or able to finish their application. Most smaller shops have expressed that they are not going to go forward with the new changes and are going to close up or retire early. To a already labor strapped industry this is not good at all! There is a silver lining, however. To the bad actors, this is going to be a easy way to get rid of the riff raft and fake safeties, and I think many here can easily tell you roughly where most of them are done in Ontario. The old way of a signature on a piece of paper is very hard to fight in todays court, however photo evidence will easily force the bad actors to figure out new angles in the cat and mouse game. Rumors are we may go to a semi annual inspection program once the kinks are worked out, tell me where are all the skilled workers going to come from? I feel there is just too much red tape this time around, and some of the things should be adjusted in the onboarding process for current garages that are already preforming inspections. I could see coming hard down on new applicants, but grandfathering in the garages we already have should be job number 1. I am sure things will work out, but man what a dog and pony show we have started!
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I am 3 weeks into the program and find issues with the new program everytime we turn it on, Parsons wait times are horrible, the staff are rude and provide little oversight to help with program proceedures or operation of thier software, they have what appears to be created some of they’re own policy in the safety process and have taken some rights away from certain levels of licencing.
Contacting the MTO is now completely useless, they have no information on the rules of the program and simply refer you back to Parsons, this in my opinion is the biggest downfall of the program, little to no govenment oversite of the program and you can only complain to those that run it???As a shop owner and a licenced tech, my feelings of a better program to reduce the number of fake safies was strong, but now that we’re into it, we are finding out that there is some serious hurdles to overcome and we will now loose income from several clients due to the rewrite of rules that had no public input!
Good luck to those that enrolled and hopefully you have a better experience.
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They provide you with the cheapest tablet available. The battery doesn’t last long enough to do five safeties a day. They want you to take so many pictures- The camera provided with the tablet from 2010 and can take 30 sec to a minute to focus.
And they wand you Take a picture of the tire pressure per wheel ???? Who Authorized this??????? And now they’ve moved the date to March 2025 – So all of us guys on the drive on program charging a pretty penny To compensate for the extra time are competing with guys who still are writing safety out of their books. Not fair at all
Oh, and now it takes two people to do a safety because someone has to hold the measurement while tech takes a picture. Am I missing something here. Crazy!!!
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