RE: [ihc] About those parking brakes .....

["Peter Shubin" <pshubin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I don't think the visual inspections went away in California and unless they
changed the law any vehicle, even the smog exempt ones, can be called for a
smog test including the full visual inspection.  I had it happen to a '64
Bug I had a few years ago.  Found out after the whole ordeal with the State
that any do-gooder can report a car that is polluting "too much" and call in
the license plate number to the State and then they come after you.  I tried
the number tonight and it still connects you to the South Coast Air Quality
Management District.

All I can say is that modified cars, women, and a sore loser's knowledge of
the smog laws here caused me a lot of grief.

I feel the need to correct your statement regarding the out of state fees.
To my recollection California never said they were "wrong" to charge the
fees.  The courts ruled the fees unconstitutional and ordered the State to
pay the fees back to the public.  There is a big difference.  Our dear
Legislature would never see a tax on a few to "benefit" the many as wrong.

Someone else mentioned the mileage driven argument as to why their Scout
would not pollute as much as 122 or so of today's SUV's.  You need to be
sent to reeducation camp.  Many years ago I went to reeducation camp, sorry,
I intended to write graduate school, at Cal Poly Pomona.  Every year my
illustrious professors in the College of Environmental Design would invite
one or two of the numerous alumni who worked at the SCAQMD to come and talk
to the College about suburban sprawl, transportation planning, smog, and how
we all had to learn to take the train (the biggest irony of the whole thing
is that the SCAQMD office building sits on top of a hill in suburbia with
only one steep street for access so you must drive to get there).  One of
the arguments they had against old cars is that they were pollution machines
even when sitting still.  The argument is that since gasoline evaporates the
older cars release pollutants from gas tanks, carburetors, open element air
filters, etc. even when they are not running and as a result they need to be
destroyed.  This was around the time that the SCAQMD would buy your old car
for $600, crush it for you to get it off the road, and sell pollution
credits to industrial polluters to cover the money they gave to you for your
car.

I'm not a scientist and neither were the people who I came in contact with
at the SCAQMD.  I don't know if their statements were true but I know that
it didn't matter.  They "felt" it was important to get the old cars off the
road so it was important to get the old cars off the road.  They had the
influence and the public funding to shape the agenda on the issue.  The
State is on the verge of becoming non compliant again or already is non
compliant again with the requirements of the Federal Clean Air Act so the
State must take steps to fix the problem or else risk losing lots of Federal
highway funds.  This is how the push to rescind the rolling 30 year
exemption started and more attacks on older vehicles are yet to come.  I
would not bet money that my two currently SMOG exempt Scouts will be exempt
in 2007.

-----Original Message-----
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 2004 18:35:47 -0600
From: "Mac McMuffin" <mac@domain.elided>
Subject: RE: [ihc] About those parking brakes .....


so are you saying that they can't do those visual inspections anymore?  i
remember them saying the out of state fees were wrong and they couldn't do
that anymore, but i hadn't heard anything about the emissions visual
inspections part.