I considered myself poor up until a couple years ago. The biggest kick in the balls each year was the vehicle inspection. If you live in a place without public transit you can't just go without a car. So I would be paying thousands of dollars to replace sensors that did little to improve the actually functionality of the car all in the name of getting rid of that check engine light. Most of the time I couldn't afford it and it was cheaper to just get a fine from time to time.
Most of the time, the issues aren't making the car pollute an illegal amount (or at least not usually), they're just making the car pollute more than it was certified to pollute (or the issues make it impossible for the car to verify that it's polluting the right amount).
And there's no Cost-Benefit analysis done for people. My grandma had to pay $3k to get her car fixed, she drives 20 miles/wk. IT would have been much cheaper for her just to buy offsets but that's not permissible. However, when Jeep builds gas guzzlers, they can just buy credits from Tesla and Toyota so the DOT doesn't fine them.
Even if her car is polluting more, it's polluting as much as I was when I was commuting 100 mi/day.
I live in a city that despises car pollution, but the traffic light timing really stinks and I"m sure that there'd be less pollution if they made the system work better. They want me to drive a hybrid, I want them to do the job I"m paying them to do: take care of the fundamental infrastructure.
Some states (mostly costal states) have rules that vehicles have to be inspected regularly. Some states inspect vehicles for safety reasons, other states inspect vehicles for emissions compliance, and a few states look for both.
It's well intentioned, but the checks leave something to be desired. In some states, a check engine light is an automatic fail regardless of whether or not the rest of the car is okay to drive. As the parent comment mentioned, it can be really expensive to fix check engine lights.
I have a car hobby and one guy I know spent like 30 hours diagnosing / repairing his 2000 Honda minivan to fix the check engine light. He tried to get a waiver, his car was producing a legal amount of emissions, but he couldn't get the check engine light to clear until he replaced a fuel pressure regulator - it's a total crock of crap. He's an older guy who only used the van to pick up his grandkids after school.
He couldn't get the minivan certified, so he had to pick up his kids in his pre-emissions car or else run the risk of a ticket he couldn't afford.
In this case, the law coerced him to drive kids in a car without seat belts or any emissions equipment than a safe car with a check engine light. IMO the laws are total failures.
I don't see at all how this makes the laws "total failures".
You're asking the emissions testing people to: believe that random guy X is going to keep his car, that he's only going to use it for one short trip a day, that the check engine light only means one thing, that it's within legal limits despite the check engine light being on, and on and on and on.
You're asking them to make an exemption--or somehow modify the laws to account for "Grampa says he will only drive short distances"--on a whole host of things they have no way of verifying or even knowing, and that makes the laws total failures?
I guess I can't see how you're proposing that vehicle emissions be regulated at all, if "this car hobbyist says..." and "grampa says..." are relevant factors in determining the road-worthiness of a car.
