Comment by cinntaile
7 hours ago
You're not allowed to drive cars like that in a functional society. When you go for your compulsory car checkup it wouldn't pass the required safety standards.
7 hours ago
You're not allowed to drive cars like that in a functional society. When you go for your compulsory car checkup it wouldn't pass the required safety standards.
while I agree, there's many places where the compulsory car checkup is tied to your relationship with the mechanic. I don't think my parents ever had a "valid" car but the certificate always was. It never felt wrong (although I think it is) but more like mutual aid or service.
There’s also the fact that nearly 1/4 US states require no emissions or safety checks whatsoever [1]. So everything is valid by default and realistically the only thing stopping you from driving a literal rust bucket, with tailpipe dragging, poor combustion, or modified emissions filtering (like modifying your truck so you can roll coal down Main Street) is it a cop feels like pulling you over for it
[1]: https://goodcar.com/car-ownership/vehicle-inspections-by-sta...
What I think is missing today is a way to challenge someone else's car. A few independent reports should force an early checkup, and if passed soon after the accusation, the accusers should get their own just to have something at stake.
It's missing because letting the minority of Karens harass everyone like that would cause the political will for the inspection programs to evaporate instantly.
Second, places with high touch governments already lose out on business due to registration arbitrage. Your proposal would dump gas on that fire.
What is allowed and what actually happens are two very different things, my friend.
In the neighbourhood I live, there's a guy who visits someone here several times per week. His headlights are broken, the tires are worn smooth, the exhaust is loud beyond all reason. Given the general state of the vehicle, I don't have high hopes for the brakes.
I reported it to the police. I'm really not the type of person to do that, but this is worse than anything I've seen. Of course nothing happened. I didn't even get a reply. They don't give a shit. Some day that guy is going to rear-end my car and break my neck because his brake lines finally gave out.
Also, the compulsory car inspections only work for honest people. People with illegal mods will put back the stock parts for the inspection, and switch them back after. I'm not gonna say the inspections are worthless, but it does make a lot of money for the state and the private actors who run the inspection centres.
EDIT to add: They made a law recently that the inspector has to take a photo of the car inside the inspection centre, because there was so much fraud happening with vehicles just being "inspected" on paper.