But I agree to some extent that adaptive headlights are a band-aid. The real problem is the American auto market's fetish for ever-larger vehicles with ever-brighter headlights. We are a nation of adult children bereft of restraint, unable to grasp (or, alternately, unconcerned by) the fact that these vain indulgences are killing people.
That is the pain of driving a Miata :). For a regular car, for example a Toyota Camry, even the topmost headlight on a Super Duty FX4 is close to a foot below the roofline of the car.
Which is good for me, because nobody ever flashes me when I'm driving my pickup, but I do occasionally get flashed in my Model 3.
Common issues are bulbs, tire inflation, tire wear, shock performance, and alignment.
Personally, with an old (2006, 200-300K km) car that we had to NCT every year, we would pass about half the time on the first time, and half of the failures were for BS reasons (e.g., one of the removable seats wasn't installed, it was in storage, or a tent peg dropped into one of the 3rd row seats when they opened it, and couldn't close it again).
Even with that NCT, when winter rolls around, 5-10% of cars have obviously broken headlights on any given dog walk.
I haven't really looked into this for other states, but I suspect we're not alone.
If your vehicle doesn't meet obvious road standards, you'll simply be pulled over and ticketed.
British cars need to pass a yearly inspection (called the MOT) to be legally allowed on the road, and if you drive around with a failed or expired MOT then you WILL get caught and the punishment will hurt.
It's quick and easy to get the test done yearly and it's not a big deal; the system works well. You can even go online and look up the MOT history of any car, which is handy if you're about to buy the car as it'll let you know about any historical faults.
I assume there's something similar in most developed countries... why does America not do this?
Many states do require similar annual inspections. The standards of those inspections vary widely, however.
I got burned by this by moving to one of the two counties with an otherwise innocuous check engine light that would have failed the emissions test so I had to get it fixed.
There's no federal requirement for safety inspections so that varies state to state.
You answered your own question. Snark aside, in the US, the idea of restricting yourself for the purpose of vague benefits to others is known as "Socialism" to at a minimum 60 million people.
It is worth noting that mechanical failure is not a leading cause of crashes, even in places without inspections.
Maybe poor people paying for an annual inspection is the affordability argument. But I cannot see it as anything other than typical myopia as I see many automobiles in Florida that should not be on the road.
(I vividly remember that we had to take a work truck to be inspected. It was a truck that rarely left the fish house where my father kept his commercial fishing boat. It mostly moved nets around the property. It had to be inspected and was going to fail because there was a crack in the windshield. As there was no requirement that a truck have a windshield, my father removed the windshield right there and allowed the truck to pass.)
The affordability argument is that shops have an incentive to sell work and they have an incentive to not draw the ire of some capricious regulator by passing questionable cars so they sell all sorts of work that doesn't strictly need to be done and over the life of a car this amounts to thousands mostly concentrated toward end of life at which point the car will be owned by someone least able to afford it.
Time off of work is a big opportunity and/or monetary cost for low income hourly employees.
My state, Colorado, requires a annual or bi-annual emissions test. No inspection for safety/operability is required though there are a lot of laws on the books for things like good tires and functioning headlights.
By now I'd have expected most people on HN to understand the relative roles of the US federal and state governments, and not make gross generalizations that are easily disproven. But, you're a green account, maybe you really are new.
You probably didn’t mean it that way, but man, that’s some ‘Murica fuck yeah material.
I know that different US states have some degree of autonomy, and I think they have a similar system in Brazil, and I’m pretty sure Switzerland also does it. Why exactly do you expect me to know anything but the bare minimum about the different levels of government in a country seven thousand kilometers away?
(Edited 'Most States' to 'Many States' since the exact number is a distraction, but in either case, millions of cars will never see an inspection)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_inspection_in_the_Unit...
More to the point, it’s just an emissions test. It usually doesn’t test every car and (at least in the states I’ve done it) it’s just a computer checking that the cars computer is giving a normal report. There’s no safety inspection in most states and there’s no way to fail emissions for a safety issue if they did see something
There's no reason a guy with a rifle in the trunk and a bullet proof vest needs to spend most of their day dealing with minor traffic code things on the highway.
I would much rather armed cops be much better trained, and much fewer in number, and only activated on the rare occasion that there is a need for them. Traffic cops should be better trained on things like headlight aiming, illegal lift kits and tire modifications, exhaust rules etc...
Most places already have plenty of laws around these things (many of them federal) but cops will never go after someone for having a dangerously lifted truck with illegal exhaust for some reason, even though they are happy to cite someone for a burnt out license plate bulb.
I fear adding yet more rules they don't enforce just adds tools to a questionable toolbag.
I'd love for things like this to be enforced, though. Often feels like the roadways are a warzone heh.
I don't think being poor makes you a minority in this country, except in the offices where the laws are being made.
Now, I don't know if California makes or loses money on smog testing (does the state get a cut?), but I'm still guessing it's going to go away at some point before too long.
And a hell of a lot of people as well as the entire insurance industry want to economically incentivize those people to stop driving (for both good and bad reasons) so they're on the same side. Every dealer and manufacturer wants to sell cars so they'll also be on that side.
Call me cynical but given the entrenched and moneyed interests in that state I think you'd be a fool to expect otherwise.
They're obviously not going to stand for Tesla doing what they're banned from doing. Even if they'd rather be doing it themselves.
In my state the emissions and safety inspections are combined under the same license. As recently as the 2010s the 3rd party that the training was contracted out to would straight up tell you in the PowerPoint slides that the state's #1 priority is emissions and that the point of the safety inspection was to make holding the license lucrative to remove incentive to circumvent emissions inspection process. At least they're honest...<sigh>
But yeah, that needs proper regulation and oversight.
Its mind boggling to me that the place the does the inspections, is also the same place that can sell you the repairs - repairs that you may or may not actually need.
It works really really well. I've been very buddy buddy with shops and they will still give me a thorough inspection. It's also a pretty basic inspection, meaning if you fail it you should probably not be on the road.
There is a balance. I’ve lived all over the US and I appreciate the fact that MI is less user hostile than other states in this regard. We still have regulations. California and Virginia are oppressive.
As a car enthusiast myself, I'm glad Mass has safety regulations and I don't have to jeopardize my safety or breathe pollution from cars rolling coal. Safety and car hobbies can go hand in hand.
In SV as soon as it rain google maps becomes a Christmas tree because there are hundreds of red icons signalling accident, 10%+ of cars over there have diy slick tires