DRIVE CLEAN

• What is Drive Clean?
• How does Drive Clean help to clean up the air we breathe?
• Why do we need a program like Drive Clean?

What is Drive Clean?

Ontario's Drive Clean program helps Ontarians make smart choices about the way we maintain and drive our vehicles. Driving clean through proper vehicle maintenance can save on fuel consumption and prolong the life of your vehicle. But more importantly, you will be doing the right thing for the air we breathe.

Drive Clean applies to you if you live in the program area that extends across southern Ontario from Windsor to Ottawa, the area of the province with the highest population density and the greatest number of vehicles.

Under Drive Clean, your vehicle must have an emissions test for registration renewal, beginning when it is five years old.  If your vehicle requires an emissions test, you will receive a reminder as part of your vehicle licence renewal application from the Ministry of Transportation.

Improvements in vehicle emissions technologies continue to reduce harmful emissions from new vehicles. However, these vehicles can become heavy polluters too, unless they are properly maintained. And many older vehicles without the newest technologies will be on our roads for years to come.

Through Drive Clean, we can all make a positive contribution to the quality of our air with proper maintenance of our vehicles and the correction of  problems identified by an emissions test.

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How does Drive Clean help to clean up the air we breathe?

Vehicles are the largest single domestic source of the smog-causing pollutants nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as well as carbon monoxide (CO), a poisonous gas.

From 1999 to 2005, Drive Clean reduced smog-causing emissions from light duty vehicles in the southern Ontario program area by more than 150,000 tonnes. In addition, the program removed more than 170,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) and 1.4 million tonnes of CO.

Between 2000 and 2005, the program reduced fine particulate matter from diesel heavy-duty trucks and buses by nearly 1,300 tonnes.

In January 2006, the program was restructured to focus on older vehicles that are more likely to pollute, by ending the test exemption for vehicles 20 years old or older (beginning with the 1988 model year) and increasing the test exemption for newer vehicles by two years.

 

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Why do we need a program like Drive Clean?

Smog is bad for our health, our environment and our communities. Cars, trucks and buses emit pollutants that contribute to smog. Drive Clean helps reduce vehicle pollution by ensuring that the emission control systems of our vehicles are maintained to the standards for which they were designed, with some allowance for wear and tear. Just as they have to be fit for the road, motor vehicles also have to be fit for the air we breathe.

For more information, please check out Drive Clean’s website.

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