quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
<<snip>>
If I were In Charge Of Things, I would even take it a step further and require periodic driver re-certification for all drivers on a schedule, as well as unscheduled driving tests for those who have been found guilty of certain violations, or have been at fault in accidents.<<snip>>

Now THAT is something I can get behind 100%! I have been bitchin' for years about this to the spousal unit, and anyone else who would listen, that drivers needed to be retested at least at every other license renewal (typically 4 years in Alabama, so retested every 8 years), and at more frequent intervals above certain ages... say every 4 years above 55, then annually above 70.

Would it be a pain in the arse? You betcha! But it would remove a lot of folks from the roads who truly do not need to be driving anymore, including both of my in-laws!

I have a relative new to VA in the military. He was going to do it anyway, but I told them both(married) to keep the vehicles plated in WI.

No need to participate in this.

I am amazed how many Liberals are here.

The inspection laws continue from a time when vehicles were not nearly as reliable.

Safety and the effect of required inspections has been analyzed by the states that abolished the abusive Commie BS required inspection laws.

How many states that abolished inspections have reversed themselves?...Tom

quote:

I am amazed how many Liberals are here.

I wouldn't go quite that far, but it is an interesting conundrum isn't it? Many who want full liberty on their thing - suppressors, sbrs, full auto - are eager to impose government controls on your thing - car inspections, home owner's associations, etc.

Liberty means liberty. even when it's not comfortable or completely safe.

In my state, they did what politicians always do - they made it easy on rich people and hard on the poor. If your car is less than 10 years old, and less than 100k miles, no inspections for you.

The two year-old deleted diesel truck, lifted with a kit from Amazon, rolling on 24s with low profile street tires and an alarming death-wobble - no inspection needed.

Grandma's completely stock, perfectly kept 2012 Buick Park Avenue - papers please!

The truth is people of means spend an amusing amount of time and resources trying to keep people below them from having or doing the same things they enjoy, and they love using the law or the words "public safety" to do it.

ETA: And I don't blame the shops that pass them through or the shops that look at every little thing. I think in Missouri it's around $13 for an inspection. The inspection list is around 35-40 individual items. Wtf do they think mechanics get paid? $13 for an hour worth of items to check? There's two basic ways to go if you're in a for-profit business: you can look at the easy items to see for 10 minutes and pass them on, or you can try to find every little thing and hope for a yes on the suggested repairs.

quote:

Originally posted by Thomasconnor:
I am amazed how many Liberals are here.

The inspection laws continue from a time when vehicles were not nearly as reliable.

Safety and the effect of required inspections has been analyzed by the states that abolished the abusive Commie BS required inspection laws.

How many states that abolished inspections have reversed themselves?...Tom

There’s nothing liberal about personal responsibility, and the sheer number of steaming piles of unsafe junk on the road today tells me that too many people aren’t accepting their personal responsibilities. The difference between vehicle safety inspections, and NFA firearms laws, for example, are that firearms aren’t necessarily expected to be utilized in a fashion that impacts others while vehicles are. Vehicles are used on shared roads, paid for by all of us, and the actions of one most certainly impacts others. If one person ignores their responsibility of ensuring that their vehicle is safe to operate on a public highway it absolutely affects others which is completely different than an individual’s right to purchase, maintain and use firearms. I’m ok with safety inspections because too many people ignore their personal responsibilities and I don’t want someone to crash into me or my family because their ball joint or tie rod end, or whatever failed and their wheel folded up and they lost their ability to control their car.

For what it’s worth I don’t agree with any exemptions to inspection requirements either. Every vehicle that’s driven on a public highway should get inspected for safety every year. Rules are only fair when they apply to all.

The problem with that is that the issue has been studied with numbers, not feelings.

Which is why most states have done away with it...Tom

quote:

Originally posted by Thomasconnor:
The problem with that is that the issue has been studied with numbers, not feelings.

Which is why most states have done away with it...Tom

I would put as much faith in those state studies as I would in the studies that are often foisted upon us that say that those with guns in the home are more likely to be the victims of gun violence than homes that don’t or other similar such studies. You can get statistics to say just about anything you want if you manipulate the data and/or methodology enough. I would have to see the specifics of the data, the methodology etc. before I would give any credence to those studies. My hypothesis is that those state studies revealed that the vehicle inspection programs likely cost the state more money than was brought in via ticket revenue, inspector licensing etc, and therefore they got rid of them as they were a drag on the state budget. The location of the studies would also matter significantly as well. A study undertaken in Nevada is likely to give very different results than one in NY, given the enormous differences in corrosive chemicals that the vehicles are exposed to.

I don’t take any statistical study as gospel, and don’t think that stats alone can counter experience. I’m not a statistician, no matter how many studies I participate in or look at in my current day job, but I know enough to see when something doesn’t add up. As an automobile enthusiast since childhood that likes to wrench on vehicles as a hobby, I’ve seen a lot of stuff over the years. I know that even given my relatively small sample size I’ve discovered problems on vehicles that were otherwise undetected when I had the vehicle on the lift for an oil change or some other repair. I just don’t buy that vehicle safety inspections don’t prevent any accidents.

I’d encourage folks to look at South Main Auto’s channel on YouTube. In addition to being a great mechanic and diagnostics expert, he gives very honest and Un manipulated access to the vehicles that he works on. He’s in Avoca, NY, in the heart of the rust belt, and while I haven’t been inside his shop,Ive been by it as I have a remediation site close by. He runs a legit business and isn’t just some keyboard commando. Take a look at the havoc that road salt wreaks on vehicles in the rust belt. It’s not uncommon to see 6 or 7 year old vehicles that have completely rusted out, structurally unsound, and flat out unsafe subframe assemblies. His experience definitely mirrors my own. There’s a ton of things I hate about NY, and I definitely will not retire here, but the $14 or so annual safety inspection is something that I don’t mind paying. My truck is a pre emissions diesel so I don’t have to have the emissions portion of the inspection, but I think even including an emissions check, which I’m not a supporter of by the way, it’s like a whopping $22 per year. At least in my experience it’s not just a big money maker for the state, and I’ve seen crashes that have occurred because vehicles had unsafe conditions that would have been caught on a safety inspection. It’s far from perfect, but it’s definitely not something that I object to.

Tom is right. Everyone is a libertarian about their stuff and a Dem about your stuff.

I would love to see the statistics you claim back up the safety of these inspections. You know, the stats that will show the majority of accidents aren't caused by drinking, drugs, distraction, old age, bad eyesight, drowsiness, but are actually caused by old vehicles. Vehicles that wouldn't pass your inspection.

That is the biggest bullshit argument I have heard in quite awhile. You also can't back it up with any legitimate studies or evidence. Old trucks aren't causing accidents because the brakes failed or the lights were misaligned or the shocks were slightly out of spec. The accidents were caused by everything I stated in the first paragraph.

Inspections are merely another tax. That is it. It is also a money maker for the shops which also pay taxes. Follow the money.

He is right. There is a whole lot of liberal thinking in this thread. Asking for more government oversight, especially of a very dubious nature, reeks of nothing I want much to do with. Smaller government is nearly always better.

Name anything the government does better than the free market. I will wait.

Edited to add: please enlighten us on all the accidents you have seen that an inspection would have saved. I call complete bs on that. I am sure you have come to an accident caused by rust but I doubt you can even bring yourself to claim that the overwhelming cause of every single accident you pull up to has absolutely zero, ZERO, to do with anything a state inspection would catch. Be honest, don't give a one off anecdotal, be honest. Speed, distraction, intoxication. Those cause nearly every accident, not a rusty quarter panel.

No inspections or emissions checks here in rural Indiana. There's all sorts of crap rolling around on the roads, and yet we don't have bodies piling up because of it. I don't know as I've ever worked an accident that could be solely blamed on mechanical failure. I've worked hundreds that were the fault of the driver, though.

Vehicle inspections are a tax, period.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:

Name anything the government does better than the free market. I will wait.

Air traffic control?

Lol. C'mon V tail, you know full well that ATC is using antiquated equipment and they give full government pensions at 55 (I believe). If it was privatized it would certainly be modernized and more efficient and cost less.

Unless you were being sarcastic, which is probably the case. In that case, you got me!

The worst errors on the part of ATC that I have personally encountered were controllers at Non-Federal towers. The government dudes (and dudettes) I have encountered have done a better job than the private (free market?) controllers.

This statement is based on a sample of one person (me), so it might not be statistically significant, although it's based on more than a half century of flying and interacting with ATC during more than ten thousand hours of flight time.

I’ve seen entire sectors shut down due to problematic equipment. Why does If atc was a business it would be better. If tsa was a business it would be safer. I stand by my government doesn’t do anything better. They use money and resources and overwhelm a problem. Only people that money means nothing to do that.

Give me a single valid reason anyone should receive a full government pension at 56. That’s nuts. They say it is because the job is stressful. I say it’s because they have a great union. Lol

Nope, still waiting for something that the free market couldn’t do better (other than wage war).

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
Edited to add: please enlighten us on all the accidents you have seen that an inspection would have saved. I call complete bs on that. I am sure you have come to an accident caused by rust but I doubt you can even bring yourself to claim that the overwhelming cause of every single accident you pull up to has absolutely zero, ZERO, to do with anything a state inspection would catch. Be honest, don't give a one off anecdotal, be honest. Speed, distraction, intoxication. Those cause nearly every accident, not a rusty quarter panel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...arie_limousine_crash

This accident happened less than an hour away from where I live. The limo owner actually got an inspection sticker from a place that just out the sticker on without really making sure that the vehicle was safe. As it turns out it was mechanically unsafe and a whole bunch of people lost their lives specifically because the vehicle was unable to operate safely. Also for what it’s worth, I don’t believe that a rusty quarter panel should be a reason for a vehicle to fail a safety inspection. I’m talking about things directly related to safe operation and control of vehicles such as steering components, brakes, structure, etc.

I absolutely agree that most accidents are caused by things like distracted driving, drunk driving, etc. I don’t argue your point there one bit. I guess that all I’m trying to say is that there are certainly some crashes that are caused by mechanical failures that might get caught by a safety inspection. I also think that the numbers might be somewhat skewed because I’d be willing to bet that there are a lot more times that a vehicle has a failure that requires a repair but doesn’t result in a crash. I would categorize something like that situation where, for example, a ball joint fails causing a wheel to fold up but doesn’t cause a crash between two vehicles as a near miss, and something worth preventing.

Since air travel has been mentioned, I’ll make somewhat of a comparison. People rely upon and consider safety inspections of aircraft to be absolutely essential, I know I’m certainly one of them. I just think it’s reasonable that the mode of transportation used much more frequently by many more people, I.e. automobile travel, has some degree of safety inspections to ensure that vehicles can operate safely on shared public roads. I’ll also concede that this may be more prevalent in some parts of the country than others. At the end of the day, do folks that are opposed to safety inspections really think it’s ok to drive on shared public roads with vehicles in a condition that they could injure other folks or damage other people’s property? If you think that’s ok then I just see things completely differently, but if you would be opposed to people operating unsafe vehicles on public roadways, do you have suggestions for preventing it other than vehicle safety inspections?

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:

I’ve seen entire sectors shut down due to problematic equipment.

Yeah, that happens. Kids and grandkids live in northeastern Ohio. After visiting them, wife and I were on the way home to Orlando area, near the southern edge of Cleveland Center's airspace, and Center surprised me with a holding clearance instead of a hand-off. I questioned it, asking for an EFC time, and they told me that landlines were out and they were unable to reach the next sector to effect the hand-off. I acknowledged the hold clearance, entered the hold, and had my wife monitor Cleveland while I contacted the next sector to ask if they could accept me. They could, and would, so I went back to Cleveland, informed them that I had accomplished the hand-off on their behalf, and we continued on our merry way south.

Was that a failure of government-owned facilities (the land-line between ATC Centers)? Or was it private sector stuff, leased by the government? I truly don't know, but I was a bit surprised that something as fundamental as communication between two ATC sectors did not have a secondary fall-back.

Lt cheg. Don’t commercial vehicles have a completely different standard than pov’s? Seems like you are crossing streams here pretty broadly. Same thing with trucking. They have an entire LE branch in most states for enforcement.

Privately owned vehicles. Are you still going to stick to some ridiculous fantasy that state inspections would curtail even a mildly statistically relevant amount of crashes? Yea, I don’t think so.

Commercial vehicles are licensed and inspected under a completely different set of rules. Let’s try this again and try to stick to the topic. State inspections for your privately owned vehicle which is the crux of the OP.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
Lt cheg. Don’t commercial vehicles have a completely different standard than pov’s? Seems like you are crossing streams here pretty broadly. Same thing with trucking. They have an entire LE branch in most states for enforcement.

Privately owned vehicles. Are you still going to stick to some ridiculous fantasy that state inspections would curtail even a mildly statistically relevant amount of crashes? Yea, I don’t think so.

Commercial vehicles are licensed and inspected under a completely different set of rules. Let’s try this again and try to stick to the topic. State inspections for your privately owned vehicle which is the crux of the OP.

Whether it’s a statistically significant amount of vehicle crashes that are prevented by safety inspections or not, I think it’s worthwhile, and believe that the number that would be prevented is not zero. I guess it also begs the question, do you think that you should be able to operate an unsafe vehicle on public roads? Do you think that operating a vehicle with unsafe steering components, or structural components, or braking components that could cause someone to lose control of their vehicle doesn’t have the ability to affect someone else besides the operator of the unsafe vehicle?

I see that you’re from Florida, have you ever lived someplace else? I’d argue that the part of the country that you’re in has an absolute impact on how likely it is that your deteriorated vehicle will cause a crash with someone else. Perhaps I’d feel differently if I lived elsewhere, but I’ve seen and personally taken vehicles off the road before that were no longer safe because of the degree of corrosion that they experienced. Is it the requirement of a safety inspection that bothers you, or do you really think that you should have the right to operate an unsafe hunk of junk on the public roadways? Would it matter if the state inspection was free? I’m legitimately curious.

I almost guarantee I’ve lived more places than you.

This entire thread is about one thing. State vehicle inspections on POV’s. I debated your logic. I don’t believe you can back up your claims. You provide a link to a crash of a commercially licensed limousine which has absolutely nothing to do with this thread. I point that out, I’m pointing it out again.

Let’s recap. State vehicle inspections on personal vehicles. Good thing bad thing. We all have opinions. You decided to state that in your LE career you have rolled up on numerous crashes that were caused by mechanical issues that a state inspection would have caught. I called bullshit on that. Tell us about them I say, you post a limo accident. That is an oh brother moment. Can you actually tell us one single accident that the sole cause, the actual cause of the accident was a mechanical and not something discussed above? You should be able to since you said “crashes”.

Not a single cop in any other non inspection state has joined your chorus of mechanical mayhem being the cause of a bunch of accidents.

You like the inspections. Awesome. I can respect that. You claiming multiple accidents where a state inspection would have kept them from happening sounds a lot like a make believe tale. If you are so inclined please tell us of these accidents. Or not and we can all ruminate on commercial vehicle accidents and why commercial vehicles should be inspected if they are for hire transport. Good discussion there, different discussion but a good one.

I’m not really interested in having a sub discussion with you on this. I don’t like state inspections. I think they are a scam that is in reality a tax. I don’t think they make the road safer in any noticeable way. If you want to scream “if it saves one life” I can’t stop you. But that is a nonsense viewpoint that probably has led to more bad policy than many things. As for your other stuff, start a new thread and maybe I’ll join in.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
I almost guarantee I’ve lived more places than you.

This entire thread is about one thing. State vehicle inspections on POV’s. I debated your logic. I don’t believe you can back up your claims. You provide a link to a crash of a commercially licensed limousine which has absolutely nothing to do with this thread. I point that out, I’m pointing it out again.

Let’s recap. State vehicle inspections on personal vehicles. Good thing bad thing. We all have opinions. You decided to state that in your LE career you have rolled up on numerous crashes that were caused by mechanical issues that a state inspection would have caught. I called bullshit on that. Tell us about them I say, you post a limo accident. That is an oh brother moment. Can you actually tell us one single accident that the sole cause, the actual cause of the accident was a mechanical and not something discussed above? You should be able to since you said “crashes”.

Not a single cop in any other non inspection state has joined your chorus of mechanical mayhem being the cause of a bunch of accidents.

You like the inspections. Awesome. I can respect that. You claiming multiple accidents where a state inspection would have kept them from happening sounds a lot like a make believe tale. If you are so inclined please tell us of these accidents. Or not and we can all ruminate on commercial vehicle accidents and why commercial vehicles should be inspected if they are for hire transport. Good discussion there, different discussion but a good one.

I’m not really interested in having a sub discussion with you on this. I don’t like state inspections. I think they are a scam that is in reality a tax. I don’t think they make the road safer in any noticeable way. If you want to scream “if it saves one life” I can’t stop you. But that is a nonsense viewpoint that probably has led to more bad policy than many things. As for your other stuff, start a new thread and maybe I’ll join in.

If you’ve lived in more than 2 counties then I guarantee that you’ve lived in more places than me. I don’t see what that has to do with anything? I wasn’t asking if you’ve lived outside of Florida in an offensive or gotcha kind of manner. I was literally asking because I wanted to know if you have experience working with rust belt vehicles. Nothing more than that, just a comment that rust belt vehicles generally experience tremendously more deterioration than non rust belt states.

I’d like to point out that I never claimed that I’ve rolled up on numerous crashes caused by mechanical issues in my LE career. In fact, I made no mention of my LE career, as frankly my experience with vehicle safety is far more related to my engineering career. The vehicles that I took out of service for safety were when I was working as an engineer and supervisor for a municipal utility department. I’m not a crash expert and never claimed to be. As for the Scoharie limo crash, you asked for an example of a crash that was caused by a mechanical failure, so I provided the most well known example that I know of. Regardless of jurisdiction there is no denying that a whole bunch of people died because of an unsafe vehicle that had a mechanical failure.

The whole purpose of my response to this thread is that I don’t find my desire to not share public, taxpayer funded roads with unsafe hunks of junk to be an incongruous viewpoint to my general libertarian leaning views. Maybe government mandated safety inspections aren’t the best way to ensure that someone can’t drive on a public road with an unsafe vehicle. I guess I’m curious as to what better ways there are to make sure that vehicles aren’t driving on public roads that are in an unsafe condition? I guess when it’s boiled right down to the essence, I don’t believe that anyone has the right to operate an unsafe vehicle on a public, taxpayer funded road. Perhaps that is the dispute between your position and my own? That’s why I asked if you believed that you have a right to operate an unsafe vehicle on a public road.

Are you messing with me? This is literally what you wrote hence my answer.

Lt CHEG: “I see that you’re from Florida, have you ever lived someplace else?”

Also Lt CHEG: “and I’ve seen crashes that have occurred because vehicles had unsafe conditions that would have been caught on a safety inspection.”

Maybe I read too much into that but you ran for fucking sheriff and your name is Lt CHEG so yea I assumed you aren’t just arriving at crash scenes in your personal time.

You mention your LE career all the time dude. How else did I visit your election campaign website?

I asked for crashes that at least sort of dovetail into this thread. Which commercial vehicles do not.

Like I said before respectfully. You are entitled to your opinion. I don’t think you can back it up, which is fine. We disagree on state inspections. All that other stuff you mentioned I don’t care. This is a bitch thread about state vehicle inspections. On this guys pickup. Specifically his tie rods.

I get it. You like the inspections. I don’t. I’m sorry. I haven’t convinced you and you haven’t convinced me. I think we will both get through the day.