Legislation
Massachusetts Voters Favor AGSC Supported Initiative
Massachusetts voters overwhelmingly passed a “Right to Repair” Ballot Initiative in the November elections that was supported by the Auto Glass Safety Council. The initiative will ensure that vehicle repair information is available to independent repair facilities so car owners are not forced to go to car manufacturer’s dealers to repair their vehicles and would apply to auto glass repair and replacement.
A coalition of auto repair shops, auto parts stores, consumers and drivers came together to make sure vehicle owners have access to repair and diagnostic information available on the vehicle they own.
The initiative updates a 2013 state Right to Repair law and was necessary to address the growing majority of new cars that hold essential repair data that is being limited to car dealers and blocks consumers, and their repairer of choice, from accessing the data.
Now, beginning with vehicles in model year 2022, cars sold in Massachusetts that use the telematics system will have to have an interoperable standardized and open access platform. The platform would have to be capable of securely communicating all mechanical data directly from the vehicle to the platform and be directly accessible by the owner of the vehicle via mobile-based application, and, upon owner authorization, all data would be directly accessible by an independent repair facility to complete the repair.
“The interoperable system will have to be established so that any repair or replacement shop in Massachusetts would have access to critical vehicle data,” said Seth Maiman, AGSC director of public affairs. “As a practical matter, if the car manufacturer has to do that for cars sold in Massachusetts, it may decide to do that for all of its vehicles, and therefore the hope is that the manufacturer’s obligation to comply with this Massachusetts
law will help drive what happens in reality throughout the country.”
According to Maiman, the industry will have to wait and see how vehicle manufacturers react to the Right to Repair legislation. “It has obvious broad implications across the nation. AGSC believes other states might elect to follow Massachusetts’s lead and have their legislators pass similar state laws,” Maiman said. “It is also likely this is the way cars will be manufactured in the future.”
Events
AGSC Committees to Still Meet in January and June
The Auto Glass Safety Council™ (AGSC) will still hold a number of committee meetings January 11-13 even though Auto Glass Week™ 2021 has been moved to June 7-9. These committee meetings will be held by video conference.
Please see below or visit www.agsc.org for a full schedule of the committees meeting and their specific times.
Committees that will not be meeting in January are the AGSC Board of Directors, AGSC AGRSS Standards Committee, AGSC Credentialing Committee, and the NWRD ROLAGS 2 Standards Committee.
All of the AGSC committees, including the AGSC AGRSS Standards Committee and the NWRD ROLAGS 2 Standards Committee, will meet in-person in June at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Fla. in conjunction with Auto Glass Week™ 2021. The exact dates and times of these meetings are yet to be determined.
Below is the updated schedule of those committees meeting in January.
To view the laid-in version of this article in our digital edition, CLICK HERE.
