Comment by kube-system
10 hours ago
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
10 hours ago
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.
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.
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.
I’d disagree. It keeps cars with bald tires, faulty brakes and other defects off the road. Poor people who can’t afford these things shouldn’t be driving the cars.
Motor carriers have a totally different regulatory regime that has a direct influence on highway safety. The issues there are due to the varying jurisdictions.
For emissions there is often nothing visually wrong with the car. So you’d essentially be giving up on enforcement if you didn’t require everyone to get their car checked at least every few years. Doing it every year is IMO overkill.
As to safety inspections it’s not a very large effect, but they do save lives and the expense is generally rather small. Yes it impacts the poor more, but that’s because getting unsafe vehicles fixed or off the road is kind of the point.
> So you’d essentially be giving up on enforcement
Yes, that is precisely what I was suggesting. At least in the general case. Spot enforcement of notable cases when witnessed (such as the aforementioned coal rolling) seems like a good idea to me.
It comes down to the cost benefit tradeoff. Most cars will be used as sold, will be kept in good repair, and will eventually be scrapped due to a failure unrelated to the emissions system. I'm entirely unconvinced that regular testing leads to an overall improvement large enough to matter assuming sufficient requirements were imposed on the vehicle at the time of manufacture.
> it impacts the poor more, but that’s because getting unsafe vehicles fixed or off the road is kind of the point.
That's not what I meant. Try getting a safety inspection in a poor neighborhood. The places are booked out and you probably can't afford the time off work even once you do manage to reserve a slot. Or you end up waiting in line for a few hours. At least that was my experience.
On top of that I doubt it catches many worthwhile violations. People are quite good at looking out for their own lives and pocketbooks.
And again there's spot enforcement. I've lived in states without safety inspections and never felt unsafe. The police would issue "fix it" tickets if they saw anything they thought was truly unsafe after which it was on you to sort it out with the court.
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I have never met anyone who properly fixed an emissions problem, and I think that's what GP meant by willful violations. Any car old enough to have emissions problems isn't worth enough to fix properly, so you cheat it by doing things like buying a spacer for the O2 sensor. Personally I'd be shocked if emissions inspections had a significant effect on total vehicle emissions, and I think that the most effective things are done at the manufacturer
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I live in a country with mandatory (mostly-)yearly car inspections (and all other motor vehicles).
Many time you don't even know that there's an issue and they only find it during the inspection. Handbrake works only on one side, normal brakes don't work properly on one of the wheels, there's play in one of the joints or tie rods, etc.
You park, pull the handbrake, you have no idea that if you parked on an incline, your car would roll downhill, but because they noticed it during an inspection, you get that fixed. At the same time, you're forced to replace all the blown lightbulbs etc., even the ones not used daily (fog lights, etc.), since they check those too. Many people don't even notice their brake lights not working.
I was sold incorrect tyres once, picked up in the inspection. Why wouldn't I want to know?
And yet somehow in the US states that don't have inspections things keep working. It's not as though we don't have statistics regarding the causes of traffic incidents.
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...