Lawmakers Revisit Auto Repair Debate
Lawmakers trying to reconcile conflicting state laws that require automakers to give more diagnostic information to repair shops criticized officials from AAA Southern New England and the repair industry Tuesday for now honing in on technology they never brought up before.
Mark Shaw, president and chief executive officer of AAA Southern New England, was on the hot seat, discussing the auto club’s position and answering questions for more than an hour during a legislative hearing. The hearing was packed with advocates, lobbyists and auto industry executives who have been working on the so-called right to repair issue for close to a decade.
Last year, Massachusetts became the first state to pass a law on the nationally debated issue. Auto manufacturers have fought efforts for years, arguing that information sharing jeopardizes proprietary information.
Lawmakers on the Consumer Affairs Committee said they’re surprised that the technology, known as telematics, is suddenly taking center stage in the debate as they attempt to marry the differences in two laws, one passed by the Legislature in July 2012 and another adopted by voters in a November referendum. Telematics is a rapidly evolving predictive technology that can alert drivers when a problem is on the verge of happening.
The law passed by the Legislature was forged as a compromise between automakers and a coalition of auto repair shops. However, lawmakers didn't pass the law soon enough to pull the question from the ballot.
Shaw said the compromise law was forged by a narrow coalition of after-market parts companies, but did not include the auto club, which has 2.5 million members in Massachusetts. “Quite frankly, we weren’t involved,” he said.
Shaw said he knows many people involved in the issue were angry with AAA last fall when they came out against the compromise bill, and urged people to vote in favor of the ballot question.
Rep. John Scibak, D-South Hadley, who co-chairs the committee, said he was puzzled by AAA’s stance and questioned why the organization supported the ballot question, which said nothing about telematics, if it was so important.
“It seems as though supporting a ballot question was a significant step backwards,” Scibak said.
If AAA was part of the negotiations, the auto club would have insisted on the importance of telematics technology being considered in any law, Shaw said.
Rep. Paul McMurtry, D-Dedham, filed legislation that addresses telematics. McMurtry described his bill as more consumer-friendly than the law passed by the Legislature.
“Car owners will want and need access to safety data their cars produce,” McMurtry said. “They are buying the whole car, and they should have access to that data.”
Rep. Garrett Bradley, a Democrat from Hingham who filed the original legislation seven years ago, said “with all due respect to the folks from AAA, we never heard from them.”
Bradley said the first time he became aware of AAA’s position was when he saw a billboard on the highway backing Question 1 on the ballot last November. He then received a late-night phone call from Gov. Deval Patrick asking what happened to the compromise.
“The issue isn’t whether we should do this. The issue is it is already done, but in several forms,” Bradley said.
Bradley filed legislation (H 184) this year with language similar to the compromise law already passed. He asked the committee to harmonize the two laws quickly, saying it had national implications.
The laws differ on dates when automakers need to have a certain diagnostic tool available for use, with the ballot dictating it’s ready by 2015 and the compromise legislation pushing it off until 2018.
“It is not fair to those who manufacture cars. They need to know how to make them,” Bradley said.
Excluding telematics from any new legislation would be the “beginning of the demise” of the independent auto repair industry, according to Shaw.
The compromise bill passed by the Legislature last year closed the door on the consumer getting the predictive information, he said.
Advocates said their mission was to make sure consumers got access to all repair and diagnostic information, which they were successful in doing. Telematics was not a major consideration at the time.
“All we were ever after is repair and diagnostic. We got that. Fighting to the death of any implementation system didn’t make sense to us,” Art Kinsman, a spokesman for Right to Repair Coalition told the News Service. He told lawmakers the task before them now was to reaffirm what they already did.
“Right to Repair is about what happens when you take your car to the shop. Telematics is about what happens before you take your car to the shop,” Kinsman said.
Car owners have more access to repair and diagnostic information, he said.
“We believe this law is working, what you did last year, is working,” Kinsman said.
Kinsman said AAA has a point about telematics, but it’s an issue for another day. The “right to repair” effort was always about the car owner being able to use the repair shop of their choice, he said.
Daniel Gage, a spokesman for the Alliance of Auto Manufacturers, said the industry is not opposed to having conversations about telematics, but said Massachusetts should proceed with the compromise law already worked out.
“This is a very fragile compromise that took seven years to make,” Gage said. “Don’t bring new issues to the table now.”
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