Hacker News Reader

Comment by linksnapzz | Hacker News Reader

California does smog, but no safety inspection that I know of. You can have a car with the brake lines repaired with duct tape, but as long as the check engine light isn't lit and it passes smog, you're good to go.

I met a guy at the La Jolla Concours d'Elegance who had imported an ('82?) Trabant. He had gotten it registered with the CA license plate "IRNCRTN". Apparently, Cal DMV saw that it was over twenty-five years old, gave him an exception and the plates, and then demanded that he have it smogged.

A two-stroke Trabant.

I believe he showed the DMV the bottle of oil that he poured into the gas tank after every fillup, and asked them if there was a smog check place willing to hook what is essentially an old lawnmower up to their million-dollar diagnostic apparatus. This seemed to work.

View on HN

Passing visual was always the crazy part. Heaven help you if you have a 1976 car that's missing some part made from unobtanium.

My understanding is that they can't test for NOx without rollers and the smog shops couldn't afford it.

In any case, you'd end up with cases where cars put together by show judges couldn't pass because it didn't match some book. A lot of cars used to have to have crazy gadgets that interfered with spark advance.

All for pass or not pass.

Truth is, I'll bet you could drop the whole system and not see a change in air quality at this point. Super-dirty early cars get a bye (aircooled VW) and late model are rarely modified or worn out. If you feel the need to test, do a good job and then simply charge for the amount of emissions that come out.

I have the feeling that the emissions industry has metastasized into a political power. Not unlike car dealerships.

regarding Kei cars/trucks, my working theory is that most of the objections are safety related. Lots of DOT standards that the rest of the world ignores. Oddly, motorcycles are perfectly legal.

> Truth is, I'll bet you could drop the whole system and not see a change in air quality at this point. Super-dirty early cars get a bye (aircooled VW) and late model are rarely modified or worn out.

That’s basically what happened in Ontario Canada. They dropped the program because it wasn’t providing any value. New cars would maintain good emissions control for 10 years and beyond that, salt does a good job of destroying cars anyway.

CO2 is a different story with pickups and SUVs. Ultimately, it’s how much you drive and how you drive, and that’s better addressed with gas taxes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com