COLLISION CHAIRMAN’S MESSAGE
Will Funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Benefit the Automotive Industry? The 1.2 trillion dollar “H.R. 3684 — 117th Congress: Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act” currently sits on our fearless leader’s desk, waiting for him to sign it into law (if he could just remember to ask his handler for a pen). Did you know if you could spend at a rate of $40/second, it would take 792.5 years to spend one trillion dollars? That seems like an awful lot of money to me, so I decided to take another look at several parts of what has now become a 1,039-page bill to see how it pertains to the automotive sector - our industry of automotive repair. SEC. 13008. WILDLIFE-VEHICLE COLLISION RESEARCH will allocate funds to research enhancing vehicles’ ability to detect wildlife and prevent vehicle collisions. SEC. 24109. REVIEW OF MOVE OVER OR SLOW DOWN LAW PUBLIC AWARENESS would fund attempts to increase driver awareness to ensure they know that they should move over for police, emergency vehicles and tow trucks operating on the side of the road. SEC. 24112. SAFE STREETS AND ROADS FOR ALL GRANT PROGRAM would fund research to increase the effectiveness of pedestrian detection of motor vehicles. SEC. 24202. RECALL COMPLETION is intended to allow the Federal Government to get a better handle on vehicle recalls. They want to know the overall number of vehicles recalled by manufacturers as well as the amount of completed recalls performed by those manufacturers. This section also shows a desire to increase awareness of vehicle recalls by requiring vehicle manufacturers to notify manufacturers, distributors, owners, purchasers or dealers of defective parts or materials. SEC. 24203. RECALL ENGAGEMENT would grant a study into the reasons why vehicle owners do not have repairs performed for vehicles subject to open recalls. It would also examine whether engagement by third
20 | New Jersey Automotive | December 2021
by DENNIS CATALDO, JR.
parties, including state and local governments, insurance companies or other entities, could increase the rate at which vehicle owners have repairs performed for vehicles subject to open recalls. SEC. 24214. HOOD AND BUMPER STANDARDS requires hood and bumper standard upgrades to better protect pedestrians and bicyclists during a collision with a motor vehicle. SEC. 25006. ELECTRIC VEHICLE WORKING GROUP would create a government-backed study group with the intention of increasing the number of electric vehicles (EVs) sold in the marketplace, figuring out where the infrastructure would need improvement and how to deal with current raw material shortages for battery components. A good amount of the bill is dedicated to both improving the infrastructure of the electric grid across the country as well as increasing our capacity to create new “hi-tech” or “advanced” battery systems within the United States plus increase our abilities to recycle current battery systems for reuse or raw material components. SEC. 70953. REQUIREMENT OF LONG TERM CONTRACTS FOR DOMESTICALLY MANUFACTURED PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT addresses something that we all dealt with firsthand last year: The lack of access to PPE. This section would mandate USproduced PPE in American facilities to safeguard public health and national security. A trillion dollars (or one million millions) is an incomprehensible figure. To put it into perspective, a trillion seconds equals 31,710 years! Such an enormous amount of money could certainly do a lot of good for our industry - and for society in general - but after reading through H.R. 3684, I have to wonder: Are we spending it in the right ways? NJA
