Keeping the Roads Safe for Democracy

Last month my daughter’s car had its Virginia “safety inspection”.  It failed.

It’s probably good that the law protects us from people like my daughter and her unsafe vehicle.  I mean, what if her brakes fail, or her bald tires don’t have adequate traction, or the boot covering her CV joint is cracked, or…  Wait, what?  Her CV boot was cracked?  That failed the inspection?

Not the brakes, or the tires, or the steering.  A small rubber boot whose function is to keep grease on the CV joint and keep dirt and water out.  Hardly a safety item.  (All front-wheel drive vehicles require that the front wheels turn at the same rate, even during turns, since they’re coupled to the drive train; the CV – or constant velocity – joints accomplish this.)

Have you ever experienced the wheel falling off a car due to a worn CV joint?  Ever seen or heard of this happening?  Of course not.  That’s because, long before they fail catastrophically, they grind and pop and otherwise let you know that they are unhappy.  And you fix it!

So why does the Commonwealth of Virginia have this on the safety inspection checklist?  Why, for that matter, do we even have a government-mandated safety inspection?  Of course, you will argue, it is because people don’t take care of their cars, and it’s a way to protect drivers and pedestrians from these people.  Imagine, you say, if we didn’t have inspections: People would drive old, beat-up cars with bad brakes, bald tires and cracked CV joint boots.  The terrorists would win!

Right.

What evidence exists that state-mandated safety inspections have decreased the number of accidents caused by mechanical failure?  Do states that mandate inspections have fewer accidents caused by mechanical failures than those that don’t mandate inspections?  Have you ever looked at your state’s list of inspection criteria and thought about how many of those items don’t have anything to do with safety?  Even for those that you think are safety related, like headlights, for example… If they work at the inspection and one burns out the next day, are you good for the next year?  Or would you replace it as necessary?  Of course you’d replace it (both, if they’re halogens).  So what does the inspection do, other than give a false sense of security that your car is mechanically sound, when it might not be?

And what about personal liberty and responsibility?  Eric Peters of EricPetersAuto.com says it very well: “[Why] not treat people as individuals – and hold each of us individually responsible for what we do – as opposed to binding us because of what others do? If I cause an accident because my car has bad brakes, I should be held criminally and civilly responsible. But if I have caused no one any harm – but ‘Joe’ has caused an accident because he drove his car on bald tires with bad brakes – please hold him responsible.  Not me!”

But instead of “Joe” getting ticketed for his bone-headedness, we all get ticketed annually at $16 per vehicle (or, in Virginia, $51 for large trucks), even if it’s in perfect condition.  And when you fail, you get further ticketed up to whatever it takes for the inspector to deem it “safe”.  So far this year, for my two (of three) cars whose inspections were due, I’ve been ticketed over $250, one for passing, and one for a split, non-safety related CV boot.  (Incidentally, I already knew about the CV boot, and I planned to fix it in the next few months when I had cash.  Now I had to pay for that instead of something else.  Can you say, “broken window fallacy”?)  Can’t wait to find out what my ticket on the third car will be.

So much for our state motto, Sic semper tyrranus.