DMT's New Smoke-Spotting Patrols Can Blacklist Your Car — Fair Enforcement or Open to Abuse?

The DMT now has officers photographing smoky vehicles straight off the road, no waiting for the annual emission test. Get caught, and you're hit with a same-day maintenance order — fix the fault, retest at the Werahera Vehicle Emission Testing Centre, or risk being blacklisted so you can't renew your revenue licence or transfer the vehicle to a buyer. Supporters say this is overdue: the air quality in our towns is bad, old diesel lorries and three-wheelers choke the roads daily, and a once-a-year test clearly wasn't catching habitual smokers in between. Critics worry it hands roadside officers a lot of discretion with just a camera and a notebook, with no clear way to contest a flagged photo, and that it lands hardest on owners who can't afford an immediate repair bill rather than on the worst polluters. Has anyone actually been flagged or stopped under this new photo-patrol system yet? How much did the fix cost, and how long before you were cleared off the blacklist? ඔයාගේ වාහනේ දුම් හින්දා පාරේ අල්ලගත්තද? මොනවද වුණේ කියන්න.