That does not make sense. I know in FL they used to have emissions testing only in Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough, and Duval Counties and not the rest of the state. That never made sense. St. Petersburg, Orlando, and Palm Beach and the suburbs of all the cities were exempt. Orlando is among the biggest polluters due to traffic congestion, being inland(not having a sea breeze) keeps the air more stagnant causing more ozone pollution. Anyways, they got rid of the emissions testing. I would not mind if they made the whole state do it instead of 5 or 6 counties. Back in the early 1990's  I brought my car to an emissions testing place and it failed. Then I drove down the street to another place and it passed. What was up with that? Makes no sense? Plus it is funny how they would even let me go to another place without knowing that I had just failed the test down the street.  

 In Nevada, there are 2 population centers - Washoe County (Reno) and Clark County (Las Vegas).  If you register your vehicle in either of these places, a smog test is mandatory.  The rest of the state is so sparsley populated that it wouldn't make sense for anyone to invest $20K in a smog testing machine to test 100 vehicles each year.

Are there folks who cheat?  You bet!  Just west of Vegas is the town of Pahrump, in Nye County.  Pahrump has about 25,000 folks, the majority of which commute to their jobs in Vegas.  HOWEVER, Pahrump is home to over 60,000 vehicle registrations.  People get a PO Box in Pahrump so they have a Pahrump "address" for their vehicle registrations.  Once they do this, no smog check.

Hmmm.  That's kinda funny.  I called the vehicle emissions program here and they said there is no problem emission testing the Prius.  There is a certain procedure the tester needs to do to get the car to keep running (turn on the A/C he said), but it is possible to do.  It appears that Georgia uses the same equipment to test their emissions as we do here, so it isn't like that would be the problem.  Maybe it is the Georgia air quality people who are having issues here and need to figure it out.

If I read you rightly Driving RX, you're saying that GA emissions testers (management?) ain't suffering from an excess of 'bright'? 

 well, either that or somebody with brains explained it to the guys here in S.L.C.

Sure, make the consumer pay and jump through all the hoops for buying a fuel-conservative vehicle.

Now that's about as good as a fart in a whirlwind. 

Here in Nevada (in the counties where the test is required), if the vehicle is 96 or newer, they just tap into the OBD port and take the readings - no more tail-pipe probes.  They DO however, take a look at your exhaust...Any visible smoke and you do not pass.