Ah, California

"CCC (formerly CyclistCarCoexist)" (ccpbb) 09/17/2016 at 01:29 • Filed to: None

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The strictest smog laws but the loosest license plate laws. This is a dealer “advertisement” plate. This can stay on until the plate comes in....or allegedly if the car stays clean enough to pass off as “new”

RallyWrench > CCC (formerly CyclistCarCoexist) 09/17/2016 at 01:40

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Funny, I got to thinking about such things on the way home today because I keep seeing the new throwback black and yellow plates everywhere. We put up with a lot of bureaucratic shit in CA, much of it well meaning if poorly executed, but if they give us custom license plates, maybe legal recreational weed, and other “fun” shit, most of the electorate won’t notice their personal freedom diminishing incrementally.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > CCC (formerly CyclistCarCoexist) 09/17/2016 at 01:43

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So stick with 911s, Aston and range rovers. Got it.

AfromanGTO > RallyWrench 09/17/2016 at 01:53

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Exactly what I have noticed as well. I could never live in Cali. It is nice out there, but way too many rules and regulations for cars. We can have a custom tag in the South, and never have emission testing.

RallyWrench > AfromanGTO 09/17/2016 at 02:04

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The thing is, I’m born & raised here and love it, and I consider myself an environmentalist, but I’m often at odds balancing that with the automotive enthusiasm that’s been ingrained since childhood. I believe smog laws are for the good, and the air quality changes prove that, but the way they’re enforced often is punitive to owners of older cars who keep them in good order. We’re easy scapegoats, when in fact by the numbers old cars don’t matter as much as the CARB would like us to believe. I have other problems, but I’m a bit of an anomaly as a lifelong car guy and hippie (not literally, but you get the idea), so I see both sides of the coin on many issues that it seems most don’t in this polarized climate.

PS9 > CCC (formerly CyclistCarCoexist) 09/17/2016 at 02:08

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In cali you have six months from the date of purchase to get a new plate. If you’re rich, just keep buying the same car over and over and you’ll never have to plate any of them.

Gonna be awkward driving across state lines, though....

Edit: Looks like the party’s over after 2019 , so you better get your no-plate fun in while you can.

Gerry197 > CCC (formerly CyclistCarCoexist) 09/17/2016 at 04:09

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I’ll miss that lovely 1 month “grace period” where I could avoid getting camera tickets.

Oh well.

My X-type is too a real Jaguar > CCC (formerly CyclistCarCoexist) 09/17/2016 at 06:49

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Didn’t Steve Jobs lease a new car every 6 months so he didn’t have to register it?

Georgia used to have the same policy but of course many people never registered their cars so they went to temp tags.

AfromanGTO > RallyWrench 09/17/2016 at 11:12

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I have a degree pertaining to this subject, and I don’t agree with all of the things CARB and the EPA want or suggest. First off the EPA is run by a bunch of fucking idiots who love to turn a blind eye to corporations violating rules. CARB is run by a bunch of whiny dumbasses the world is ending if you don’t have 6 cats and 4 mufflers with 3 EGR valves. Cars are an easy target to have people get on board with new regulations and danger the world is going to end if you put on a catback on your truck. Smog laws have done good pushing manufactures to make better performing vehicles with higher mpg, or creating cheat mechanism to pretend to do the same thing.

If the EPA and CARB was serious they would go after large ships. They put out tons and tons of pollutants yearly. We did a study and if all of the ships around the world got 2-3 gallons of fuel better than now it would decrease the pollutants significantly.

The EPA only seems to care about air quality though, and it probably has to do with its ties to CARB, and sharing data. When it comes to water they don’t give a single fuck. They limit companies putting used water into rivers, and tax them for it. Now companies are pumping their used dirty water back into the aquifers. King America Finishing had 90 million in fines for killing every fish, turtle, and alligator for 77 mile stretch of river, but only had to give a 1 million donation and had no fines until the river keeper sued.

http://ogeecheeriverkeeper.org/project/2011-f…

CaptDale - is secretly British > AfromanGTO 09/17/2016 at 11:29

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100% but the shipping industry is so much money and while they do have regulations in US ports on ship safety and hull design to actually get into a port, there are almost no US flagged ships. The only ones flagged here are our Military ships and a few odd ball private ships that do contracts with the Military. This is due to the fees of being flagged a US ship are so much higher than any other country on the planet. 3

This is called a flag of convenience.

Flag of convenience is a business practice whereby a merchant ship is registered in a country other than that of the ship’s owners, and the ship flies that country’s civil ensign. Owners of a ship may register the ship under a flag of convenience to reduce operating costs or avoid the regulations of the owner’s country. The closely related term open registry, which describes a ship register that will register foreign-owned ships, also exists. The term “flag of convenience” has been in use since the 1950s, and it refers to the civil ensign a ship flies in order to indicate its country of registration or flag state. A ship operates under the laws of its flag state, and these laws are used if the ship is involved in a case under admiralty law. The modern practice of flagging ships in foreign countries began in the 1920s in the United States, when shipowners frustrated by increased regulations and rising labor costs began to register their ships to Panama.

So even if the EPA decided to regulate ships, it would only apply to US flagged vessels and thus primarily the Navy and Merchant Marine, which lets face IT, the government would never allow, or would exclude Military forces. Though the country as a whole could put restrictions on ships coming into ports like they did with the truck drivers, making it impossible to come into a US port with out the proper emissions or some sort of fine. Then again, our government is run out of the pocket of the businesses that bring in these good, that I don’t believe that would ever happen either.

Which is very sad, because in reality we could put emission restrictions on every ship that comes into a US port and remove ever US based vehicles emissions systems and still be making a huge impact in fixing the state of pollution. I hope I didn’t ramble on too much, I plan on going back to school to get into the maritime industry again if I can. So I am a bit passionate about it.

RallyWrench > AfromanGTO 09/17/2016 at 12:13

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Thanks for the perspective. I almost mentioned large ships last night, there’s huge room for improvement there, no doubt. But that would require people getting off their asses. The EPA, like CARB and so many other agencies, is overrun with people trying to justify their jobs by grabbing low hanging fruit and without actually doing anything important.

Vehicle fuel economy has improved in recent decades, but by and large when I check for smog readiness I see the same tailpipe emissions on my 5-gas on newer cars and 25 year old beaters. The allowable limits are higher, of course, but an older car in good tune with a healthy Cat will blow zeros. The oxygen sensor and catalyst were the big breakthrough, and they’ve just been tweaked since. The emissions on cold start and under load have improved due to things like air injection, close coupled cats, and VVT, but arguably we haven’t really had another breakthrough on the same level as the Cat and 02S as far as road vehicle ICE emissions.

I pay pretty close attention to water issues, and the things that have been allowed to happen in our watersheds is criminal, full stop. Companies need to die over this stuff, people go to jail. That shit keeps me up at night.

RallyWrench > CaptDale - is secretly British 09/17/2016 at 12:23

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You are in the wrong industry behind that parts counter, my friend! Great info.

If New Zealand can ban nuke ships from its harbors, we could implement an emissions/access plan. It’d piss some people off, but most of those people likely deserve it.

I like the quote, “what if climate change is a hoax and we make the world better by mistake?”. The shortsightedness demonstrated by our society is unreal.

CaptDale - is secretly British > RallyWrench 09/17/2016 at 12:48

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Actually the New Zealand thing is quite interesting. The one year I was at the Maritime Academy, we took the ship to American Samoa, New Zealand, Australia, and then to Hawaii. The school and the ship are kind of government funded. The ship T.S. Golden Bear

is a retired Naval vessel and because of that when traveling to ports we can not declare whether or not the ship is Nuclear powered because US warships don’t declare anything cause it is classified. Though you can go on wiki and find that she runs on twin Enterprise R5 V-16 diesel engines making 17,000 shp (shaft horsepower). So we were able to dock in New Zealand because a former alumni works high up in Maritime New Zealand and was able to get the ship cleared.

Yes I know I am, unfortunately school is very expensive.

AfromanGTO > CaptDale - is secretly British 09/18/2016 at 11:43

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You hit the nail on the head with that one. If Panama or the Caribbean decided to pass a law regulating ship emissions the owners would finally have to do something. I wonder how quickly the cruise ship industry would crash if they had to follow US regualtions.

AfromanGTO > RallyWrench 09/18/2016 at 11:53

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In Cali, you guys have some screwed up water laws. How is Nestle allowed to dry out the public wells only to later sell it as bottled water. You guys would rather have clean air than drinking water.

RallyWrench > AfromanGTO 09/18/2016 at 12:10

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No joke. You’d think we would take water more seriously, and many do, but the West was pretty much built on horrible mismanagement of water so it’s par for the course.

AfromanGTO > RallyWrench 09/18/2016 at 13:26

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Wow, I just looked up some Cali water laws, and up to 2012 you had to have a permit to collect water from rain that fell on your property. It’s not like you guys ever get much rain to begin with, but damn. If they only regulated the water as much as the air.

RallyWrench > AfromanGTO 09/18/2016 at 13:59

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I have a story on that point, actually. In my town, we’re now putting in a sewer because nitrates from faulty leach fields is contaminating our watershed, and the aquifer is starting to show saltwater intrusion. Just finished my connection last weekend, in fact. At first, they required us to either back fill or remove our septic tanks altogether, which could is the most expensive and shortsighted thing to do. It took quite a fight just to be allowed to use them for rainwater or gray water collection, and to use them and our leach fields for groundwater recharge. Nobody could believe they were that dumb, but they were. At every step, locals have had to stand up and ask what the fuck they’re thinking, especially because we’re being made to pay dearly for it.

AfromanGTO > RallyWrench 09/18/2016 at 14:23

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Most of the aquifers in GA have saltwater intrusion... Historically rivers that were fresh, and were occasionally brackish are now entirely brackish. The brackish water keeps on traveling further upstream. Also the factories in the area are used water from wells that were used for cooling machinery back into the aquifers, since they would have to pay to discharge the water to the river. So now the aquifers have polluted water and salt water in them.....

I did a research project on the nitrification of rivers, and what it does to the oceans. I collected and studied beroe ovata and mnemiopsis leidyi which thrive in high nitrogen levels from runoff. There’s so many reasons for runoff, and jellys love those conditions.

CaptDale - is secretly British > AfromanGTO 09/19/2016 at 12:12

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Yeah, water is becoming more and more polluted, but people are so worried about the air because it is easily seen. We really should be a lot more worried about water and its availability. But instead we worry about nuclear power, a smoggy race car, and what ever the new tells us to think about. I think as a Bond movie Quantum of Solace has a good point in regard to water. It will be and is our most precious resource because we literally require it to live. Water and food, the rest could fuck off and we would still survive.

AfromanGTO > CaptDale - is secretly British 09/19/2016 at 13:22

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Exactly. Awesome Bond reference too! You would think the govts would be more worried about the water we drink....

CaptDale - is secretly British > AfromanGTO 09/19/2016 at 13:33

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Not when they can sell that water to bottling companies for major $$

AfromanGTO > CaptDale - is secretly British 09/19/2016 at 14:12

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Which they claim is their right to do.... :-/

CaptDale - is secretly British > AfromanGTO 09/19/2016 at 14:47

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If it is “public” land then the public should decide.

AfromanGTO > CaptDale - is secretly British 09/19/2016 at 16:30

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Don’t forget corporations are people now too.....