Something good in CA: Fewer car inspections

by John Seiler | November 15, 2014 1:15 am

Depending how old your car is, in California every couple of years you have to take it to get “smogged” before your license is renewed. It costs from $25 to $50. As government bureaucracies go in California, it’s relatively low on the onerous scale.

That’s something good about our state. Because other states require yearly safety inspections, something we don’t have. It’s obviously a government scam for the bureaucrats in cahoots with the car-repair industry.

Of course, in California the cops can cite you for driving an unsafe car, giving you a chance to get it fixed. But mostly, modern cars are very safe, and getting safer every year.

One place that requires the yearly inspections is Virginia, the home of libertarian auto writer Eric Peters. He’s a car buff who owns a lot of cars. He writes[1]:

Each year, in my state, I am required by law to take each of my seven vehicles in to be “inspected” – on my time and at my expense. It does not matter that I know this exercise is a massive waste of my time and money, since I know my vehicles are “safe.” I am very conscientious about my vehicles (being consciously concerned about my own safety as well as the safety of others) and so keep track of such things as the condition of the brakes, the tread left on the tires, whether the signal lights are working – and so on. I also know I am competent to do the repairs – and feel more comfortable driving a car that I know is in good order because I keep it in good order.

None of this matters.

I must prove to the satisfaction of a minion of the state that the car is, in fact “safe.” Indeed, the car is presumed to be unsafe irrespective of its actual mechanical condition. And, here’s the real kick in the crotch: I am subject to violence – to being waylaid at gunpoint by armed gangsters (i.e., the police) if I do not obtain the inspection irrespective of the actual condition of my car, its tires, its brakes (and so forth).

Innocence is no defense. Just as one need not be “drunk” in order to be treated as presumptively drunk at a “sobriety checkpoint. Refuse to take their tests? You are as guilty under the law as if the floorboards were littered with empty fifths of Jack Daniels. Even if, later on, you demonstrate beyond any doubt that you were completely sober at the time of your arrest and caging….

Adding injury to insult, you are forced to pay for this. If you, like me, own multiple vehicles, the total sum is not trivial. In my state (VA) the mandatory annual inspection is $15. I own seven vehicles. That’s another $105 out the window – and into the hands of government  – each year. Over the course of 20 or 30 years, it amounts to several thousand dollars.

Maybe, even at this late date, Californians are just to wild to go along with such nonsense. Time for a California jam:

Source URL: https://calwatchdog.com/2014/11/15/something-good-in-ca-fewer-car-inspections/

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