I live in Lockhart, Texas. I was happy to learn that State Inspections of cars have gone away.
I used to live in Houston, Texas where inspections were about $30, Where I live, now they are $7.
I am a little worried about that.
I have had chronic back and neck pain for about 40 years because of people who rear ended me.
What are your experiences.
Florida did away with “safety inspections” in the late seventies.
Even though inspection stations were operated by state employees, some were drunk on the power they had.
I have never lived in a state that had safety inspections.
Emissions, yes. We knew it was a scam when a buddy’s $100 Oldsmobile passed inspection. That car used (and leaked) so much oil he never changed it.
I now live in Florida where a picnic cooler with an engine could get registered and drive on the roads.
Sorry you got rear-ended, but how was that an inspectable safety issue and not a driver error by the person who hit you?
Pennsylvania has a yearly inspection done by independent shops but under the PA Dept of Revenue, years ago they had twice yearly inspections. I now live in Delaware and the state has a free inspection lane which checks emissions, lights, wipers and brake function, every 2 or 3 years depending on how the car is registered. I have not seen much difference in the number of beaters on the road
The guy hitting me may had have good brakes.
But if the state has no safety inspections, what is the incentive to keep your car safe by taking good care of your car ?
The driver’s life, the lives of tne family, the lives of your fellow drivers, the cost of an accident to the owner and the victim, the increased cost of insurance after that accident, the ticket you’ll get for the accident, the possibility of getting sued by the person you hit… Is that enough reason to maintain your car? For some, it probably isn’t.
Having no money for service but the need to get to work seems to be a common theme for poor maintenance.
Seems your accident has little to do with car maintenance.
I was talking about the other drive(s) who hit me. It never occurred to me to sue him.
His insurance paid for the damage and I was happy with how it turned out.
Many years later I had a prostate operation.
The surgeon made a mistake and cut my urethra neck. Human make mistakes.
And ever since I have to urinate 12 - !5 times a day.
I was pi**ed about it because he did not tell me about it.
About 2 years later I went to another urologist .
He put a camera into my urethra and it hit a spot when it should have gone further.
That was where the “cut occured in my urethra occured”
He told me he could fix it.
After the operation, there was no change in my urinatiin
We have a yearly inspection and emission here in NY which costs $22.
I fail to pass every year as a result of the tinted windows. DMV won’t approve my request for a tint exception because I don’t meet their criteria.
To get around this I tint my windows annually, which costs $250.
Back when Florida had safety inspections they put a sticker on your windshield.
Then people would take off the good tires and reinstall the nearly bald tires.
Bald tires, head light (sealed beams back then) burned out, brake light broken, no problem as long as the inspection sticker was current.
No noticeable difference after inspections were eliminated.
The population of the world has double since I got my drivers license, that I do notice.
Yeah, I know. That is obvious. But you were commenting about being rear-ended and safety inspections. I didn’t think you backed into the other driver.
I see a dozen commercials every day for lawyers encouraging me to sue if someone hits me so it is always on my mind.
That statement contradicts your original post and the supposed reason for this thread… And this is a reason to sue someone. Continuing pain and suffering caused by someone else’s action is a reason to sue.
And then this unrelated issue…
So why didn’t you sure the physician? Same issue as your neck and back pains. Medical mistakes are estimated to be the 3rd largest cause of death in the US. Behind heart disease and cancer.
First you say you are happy that the state inspections are going away.
Then you say you are worried about that.
You accident was 40 years ago and has nothing to do with the state inspections.
Why you posted this is hard to understand.
Mustangman pretty much said it all, but remember;
This is the same thing as if I pick up a rock, hammer, crowbar whatever and hit someone with it, it is my fault not the weapons fault it is mine, same thing with a vehicle, if the driver is not paying attention, they can/will rear end you…
Luckily with some newer vehicles they have built in safety features like pre collision braking etc… But it is still the drivers responsibility to use the brakes…
Sorry you have the chronic pain, from someone that deals with similar chronic pain for different reasons…
The OP never posted the cause of being rear ended, it could have been brake failure on the other car.
I don’t really mind our $21 NY state inspections. Most of the independent shops around here are competent and honest.
I did have to call the State Police because of an incompetent inspector, many years ago.
He decider the emergency brake on the driveshaft of my 61 Dodge Dart Phoenix needed adjusting. He then turned it adjuster the wrong way so far that he bound it against the end of the shaft. He also “aligned” my head lights and failed my car for now having NO emergency brake.
I went down the street to a shop that looked like it had been there for a long time and told the inspector and owner what had happened. He heated the star wheel and adjusted it, found out that all 4 headlights were pointing in wildly different directions and adjusted them. He charged me $10 and told me to show the bill to the first shop and get my sticker. He told me he was too busy and to call him for an appointment in a couple of weeks.
I called the State Police and they met me at his station. They went and talked to him and he came out an put the sticker on whithout a word and he was out of business the next week.
I’m aware of the inspection done in other states such as Hawaii where you can take your car to most mechanic’s and get the annual inspection done. Used to have emissions tests in certain counties here but that ended at the end of 2019. Back in the mid 80’s we had the brakes on our Datsun 510 almost fail (one circuit was working) due to a bad wheel cylinder.
Luckily the closest place to pull over was our mechanic’s shop, even though he was closed on Sat. Saw the paperwork more recently and it had a full brake job including the wheel cylinders and caliper rebuild. Could have been worse.
Minnesota did away with the inspections after a hard analysis revealed that the benefit was mostly to the inspection stations. If you need an inspection to maintain a vehicle, there is a lot more to work on. Sure a very small percentage of cars on the road might benefit but with the natural turnover takes care of a lot of it. Others will disagree but I suggest a hard look at the real cost versus benefit.
I visited my son in Jacksonville FL last year and I noticed his Mustang tires were basically slicks. I asked how it passed inspection and he explained there were no inspections in Florida. I helped him drop his car off for new tires (on his dime not mine).
In NC the state requires safety inspections and about 10 counties also have emissions inspections.
We buy new tires in the spring before the rainy season. When I was living in Ohio, we bought new tires in the fall before the snow came!
About 10 years ago, NJ reduced its vehicle inspections to “emissions only”. The first time that I visited a state inspection station for this slimmed-down test, I asked the inspector if they really looked only at emissions, and his response was, “Even if you drove in here with no windshield, no headlights, and with 4 flat tires, I would have to give you a passing sticker as long as your emissions were w/in specs”.
While I recognize that most accidents are the result of driver error–rather than defective equipment–I resent having to share the road with cars that have bald tires, lousy brakes, and other equipment defects.
Why are you even asking such a question?
Do you need a nanny state to force you to take care of car maintenance?
We don’t have safety inspections in California. We do have a long dry season (April to October) and the first times there’s any rain lots of cars spin out or skid off freeway exits. When people give their car as much attention as their refrigerator, they have to pay the price eventually. So do the rest of us, to some extent.
There are almost 40,000,000 people living in California, they speak over 100 different languages and many have little or no understanding of what they’re doing, driving. It’s amazing we get by as well as we do.