Comment by kstrauser
13 hours ago
I watched a pickup roll coal in the middle of freaking East Bay, literally within site of downtown San Francisco, on a bicyclist. I reported their license to the California Air Resources Board, and not longer after that I saw it up on jacks in a neighborhood auto shop. That made my day. Asshole.
California is rather strict on emissions. Other states don't care. I used to work for my state's version of the DMV and the only public facing page where one could report things was to report people who would not register their cars locally (many people who purchase very expensive cars chose to register them in Montana). There used to be a web page to report license plates that were worn and needed replacing (like the reflective coating wore off, or all the paint got scratched off).
Vehicle regulation in the US is piss poor. Here's the full list of states that require all passenger vehicles to be inspected for safety and emissions every year:
* New York
* Massachussets
* Vermont
I used to live in Massachusetts. I'm not sure it's a benchmark to look up to. If buy a brand new car from a dealer, your next stop must be an inspection station - a pointless waste of time and money. But if your car is older than 15 years? You're no longer required to have an annual emissions test. Pretty backwards.
Why should that be required? Let people do as they will and impose penalties for problematic behavior (including negligence). I lived in a state with safety inspections and AFAICT it was little more than yet another disproportionate speed bump for the poor and a complete waste of time for society at large.
I do see the merit of inspecting larger trailers (such as for boats) once a year given the combined increased likelihood of incompetence and risk to life when things go wrong. But even then I think it doesn't actually accomplish much in practice. The time and effort would be better spent on targeted public education campaigns, possibly mandatory.
For emissions, again who cares. Regulations imposed on the high volume manufacturers broadly solves all the issues that are easy to solve. The rest are either willful violations or collectors. The latter is technological in nature and inevitably gets grandfathered for both safety and emissions everywhere I've lived.
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Utah used to require safety inspections every year, but they eliminated them; there were no noticeable side effects [1].
"Safety Inspections" were generally just a grift for third-party repairshops to collect free money and I couldn't be happier that they are no longer a thing.
Be aware that "safety" and "emissions" are different. Emissions testing is still required biannually for newish vehicles and yearly for older ones.
[1] https://www.deseret.com/2017/3/9/20607904/lawmakers-remove-r...
Safety inspections I’ve dealt with were largely regulatory capture for auto shops. Oh, your fender is rusty? Better replace that, even if this is your fishing wagon!
CA doesn’t require annual smogs, but once your car is a certain age, it’s at least biennial. I just did ours last week.
I wouldn’t say it’s piss poor in the entire US just because it is draconian in those 3 states.
It's probably a much larger list if you expand it to every other year. Though that won't make for nearly as exciting a post.
That reminds me, I am overdue for a smog check...
I'm in Idaho, so not such resource exists. It would have to be a federal agency that does the enforcement because our cops/prosecutors/lawmakers won't ever make something like that happen.
You can take temporary comfort knowing that it’s costing them $7 per gallon for that little asshole stunt. It seems you have to he is especially insecure to intentionally want to burn smoke on someone else. Especially when Tesla’s have a BioWeapon air filtration setting.
Not an obvious google (for me), so here's the link:
https://air.arb.ca.gov/Forms/VehicleComplaint/SmokingVehicle
I'm in Texas, and I get coal rolled multiple times a year while I'm riding my bike. One asshat actually hit my shoulder with his extended mirror. After that, I started using my GoPro as a dashcam since I wasn't able to get the asshat's license plate number.
Man I got hit so many times as a cyclist in TX and GA. It took me awhile to realize that in GA, it was sometimes intentional. I hadn't realized how much bicyclists were disliked.
There’s something about driving cars, particularly larger ones which induces extreme violence in people. These same people wouldn’t kill you in a fist fight but would do it with their cars without a thought.
I don’t known if its the heat or lack of greenery but everything I hear about riding bikes or motocycles in Texas just makes it sounds like there is some deep latent aggression there. I have bicycled in a bunch of states including the Southeast and never encountered anything like the stories people tell about Texas.
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Ok I’m not from the US. Why do people do this?
I had a neighbor with a car they clearly wouldn't fix that desperately needed a smog check. reported them also. they moved away shortly after though, so i'm not sure if CARB ever followed through.
I got a nastygram from CARB once for something like that. I think they follow up.
Here in Colorado we have a new anti coal rolling law, with a hotline you can call it in on.
You know what happens when you call it in? The government sends a letter to the registered address of the truck saying, basically "Hey! Your emissions are very wasteful, you should get that checked out!". Glad California seems to have some teeth to the emissions laws.
Seems about as effective as could be though. By the time you see them doing it, it's already cleared up by the time you pull out your phone to video it to use as evidence. So this is pretty much acknowledging that it would be ripe for abuse if it had any actual consequence.
Patiently collect multiple (say 3) independent reports of the same plate. Have the police show up for a surprise physical inspection (free of charge naturally). Track the sources and targets of reports to watch for any abuse.
> and not longer after that I saw it up on jacks in a neighborhood auto shop
Things that didn't happen for 200 please
#NothingEverHappens
In the real world, sometimes grownups have to actively do things to make their worlds nicer. We can’t all just sit around being cynical or nothing ever gets done.
In the real world, in a city as big as San Francisco, probabilities say otherwise.