Periodic vehicle inspection for emissions and safety compliance. Many jurisdictions already have this for gas engine emissions, a handful of states already have safety inspections. Done right, it can be low burden and low cost, and basically put an end to Def deletion. Done poorly it's grift to the shops that do the inspections, and an economically external annoyance to vehicle owners, and unnecessarily limits the ability of people to tinker with their own vehicles.
I don't really care how it affects car modders or people with sports cars. I have a sports car, and yeah the California smog test has been super annoying cause of electrical problems with that are unrelated to its actual emissions, but I knew what I was getting into when I bought something known for unreliability. Fixed it myself. There's a dude across the street with a modded car who always complains he has to bribe the smog guy $500, as if he was forced into driving a track car on the street. I just want regular cars to be drivable without undue burdens, and the enthusiasts can deal with it.
California gasoline tax pisses me off more because it's higher than anywhere else and the money seemingly goes nowhere.
I had to sell by beloved modded sports car when I moved to California. It blew clean as a whistle, but since the aftermarket parts were all from out of state (installed over the course of years), the state failed it as “tampered.” What a pile of shit. These guys are somehow driving around rolling coal on cyclists without getting grief, but I have to get rid of my car because it doesn’t have the right CA stamp on the intake system. CA’s system is terrible for home mechanics.
Sucks, but it's the cost of having different standards. Same thing happens trying to import random cars to the US.
As someone who lives in a state that got rid of emissions testing before I could drive it sounds like a horrifying thing to have to deal with.
Why is it horrifying? I've taken cars in for testing for years. It's pretty quick and painless.
Was going to say, you only hear stories from the relatively few people who have issues, not the people who go in and out as usual.
> Done right, it can be low burden and low cost
The rules mostly penalise the poor (and often unfairly).
You are severely underestimating how hard "done right" is.
I'm from New Zealand and the yearly car checkup is burdensome. About $75 and an hour wasted minimum to get car checked.
However the workshop profits come from fixing faults so their economic incentive is to find faults.
It costs you way more time if something needs fixing (parts delays, getting car and from workshop, etc.)
Our warrant of fitness regulations are ostensibly for safety (yours and others). However the jobsworth wonks have zero incentive to balance the risks versus the costs. The rules get stricter every year for goals that have no measurable outcome.
Many of the safety regulations are sensible, but many are just bullshit.
From memory (I haven't lived in NZ for a while now), the WoF check could be done at VTNZ stations, which explicitly did not do repairs to avoid this conflict of interest.
Alas, it looks like VTNZ was privatised and the exact outcome you would expect happened.
New Zealand sounds unreasonable. It's reasonable in like California. They don't mandate yearly checkups, just smog testing which is every 2 years for cars older than 8 years.