In some ways the bill on motor vehicle inspections passed by the General Assembly in its waning hours may have gone too far, and in some ways not far enough – but it’s not a compete clunker.

Pressure has been building to exempt the newest cars from required state safety and emissions checks. And, naturally, there’s been counter pressure from the inspection stations. The final arrangement retains safety inspections for all cars and light trucks but lets vehicles a) with fewer than 70,000 miles or b) in the three newest model years escape the emission test.

The eventual effect, if the bill becomes law, will be to lower costs by about $16 a year for folks in those counties, mostly the urban ones, where an emissions check is required, for at least three years. Air quality is unlikely to suffer, since newer vehicles almost always pass the test. It might have been smarter to exempt vehicles up to two or three years old from the safety checks too, but not let the odometer run quite so long on the engine check. But hey, it’s 16 bucks.