Car inspection in your state?

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Over 30 years ago the tri-county area around Detroit had tailpipe testing. After running this program for ten years it was found that this program had cost the public $2 billion and improved the air quality by ~2%. That's not even statistically significant. They canned the program.

I suspect something similar is true with the rest of the country. For all the money spent to determine whether cars are clean and compliant, I doubt the public is any better off. Sure you might catch a few scofflaws and cars that have deferred maintenance and repair. But I don't think there are too many of these around to make a difference.

Detroit isn't completely off the hook. The EPA has put SE Michigan on notice. If the air quality is worse than a certain level for too many days, we'll be forced to put some clean-air plan into action. So, Detroit has Ozone Action Days when the summer air is stagnant, where residents are urged to abstain from pollution creating activities, such as mowing the lawn, or filling up with gas.
 
No inspections here for most vehicles, unless: you let the registration lapse for more than 3 months; you bring a vehicle in from interstate and want to register it in Tasmania; or you want to register a repairable write off (salvage title) vehicle. And they're a basic roadworthy inspection only, no emissions testing ever. Taxis are inspected either 6 monthly or yearly, can't remember which. Last inspection I had done cost $AUD90.
 
An old mate of mine has been in Aussie since the late '80's, last time he was over he laughed and said the car he has now wouldn't be allowed on the road in NZ. No emissions testing here either, but now JDI's have to have a sniff test before export. Because of them (as I previously mentioned) our simple safety check has now become a compliance test.
 
I suspect that without safety inspections, working brakes and tires with tread would be optional for a lot of the folks on the road by me in new York city.
 
Originally Posted By: firemachine69
I think inspections should be $500 each time, done annually. Around here there's no inspections or emissions done after a car is registered.

Keep some of that trash off the road and people not worthy of driving...


What in the world would justify putting such a high price on an annual inspection? Not everybody has $500 just lying around to spend on an annual inspection. Inspections don't take much time, the emissions testing is the expensive part. Even all in its less than $100. You sound like you just want to put a punitive cost on it, to keep "people not worthy of driving" off the road. Many of these people are hard working citizens who depend on that car to get to work. Do you want them to be unemployed because of an arbitrary exorbitant inspection fee? I guess if you can afford the $500, that means you're "worthy of driving." I could pay the $500, but I don't consider that that makes me any more worthy of driving than the guy next to me who maybe earns 30% of what I do, but might be just as good or better driver and who keeps his car well maintained (which would be harder to do if you have to throw away extra money on an inspection for no benefit). Absolutely terrible idea with tons of unintended negative consequences. Why not quadruple all property taxes too, that way only people worthy of owning a home could do so?
 
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