DMT's New Smoke-Spotting Cameras Can Blacklist Your Vehicle — Fair, or Cruel?

The Department of Motor Traffic has set up a dedicated unit with officers stationed in major cities photographing vehicles that emit excessive smoke. Based on those photos alone, a maintenance order goes out the same day, and the owner must repair the vehicle and pass inspection at the Werahera testing centre by a set deadline. Miss it, and the vehicle gets blacklisted — no revenue licence renewal, no ownership transfer, until it's fixed. Supporters say it's overdue: Colombo's air is bad, and old diesel lorries, buses and trishaws visibly belching smoke have gotten away with it for years because the old probe-in-the-exhaust test was easy to dodge or bribe past. Critics say judging a vehicle by a photo with no real due process is shaky, and that it hits poorer owners hardest — the ones driving a smoking vehicle because they can't afford a newer one in the first place, not because they don't care. Has anyone here actually been photographed and gotten a maintenance order? What did the repair cost you, and did the system feel fair or just a cash grab on people who were already struggling? මේක පරිසරයට හොඳයි කියලා හිතනවද, නැත්නම් දුප්පත් අයට විතරක් දඬුවමක් වෙනවද?