Tired of seeing “smokers” on the freeway? If you don’t like the quality of tailpipe emissions you see, you can report them. Brian Button, air quality specialist for the DNR, says when somebody else is infringing upon your environment, you can give a call to the agency’s new “smoking tailpipe” program.He says people call to see what they can do when they see a smoking car, so the program lets you call in the license of a car emitting lots of exhaust. State pollution-control workers will look up the license, but won’t give that information directly to you.They’ll send the owner material to help them figure out why the car’s so smoky. Button says at least some of the time, people are inspired to make repairs.There are no fines and cleaning up the car is voluntary, but once people learn they could fix it, about half take action. The programs’ based on successful reporting systems in Missouri and several other states.
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