Today’s Auptopian Asks query is “what’s the dumbest law,” instead of “name a dumb law,” because lawbooks are full of all manner of peabrained rules and regulations when it comes to anything and everything automobiles. Some are intelligent enough conceptually speaking, but become silly in execution or enforcement; others are just patently dumb from ding to dong.
In the ding to dong category, I nominate the NHTSA’s 1979 call for speedometers to highlight the 55mph position on the dial and cease providing any indication for speeds over 85mph. As the national speed limit at the time was 55mph, having some kind of emphasis for that annoyingly low velocity wasn’t the worst idea, and came at the expense of nothing beyond a little extra paint (or, in the case of the Mustang SVO speedo below, a different paint color – an orange tick at 55mph instead of white).
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But the 85mph maximum as some kind of safeguard against drivers “seeing what she can do” because whatever she can do beyond 85mph won’t be displayed? Well, that’s just silly. I assure you, many drivers still flat-footed the right pedal until the engine topped out, no matter the speedometer’s ability to keep counting the miles per hour. And in some cases – again with the SVO cluster above – one could still see how fast they were traveling as the needle swung past 85 into unlabeled but nonethless clearly marked speed units.
I’m confident 85mph-max speedometers led to more occurrences of speeding than they did instances where the tactic slowed drivers down. Ever been blithely sailing down the interstate at 95mph, pacing traffic, only to have your partner (if not yourself) glance at the speedo and say “whoa, better slow down”? That doesn’t happen when the needle pins at 85mph. “Do I know how fast I was going, officer? Honestly, I don’t. Not past 85, anyway.”
Your turn: What’s The Dumbest Automotive Law or Regulation?
Top graphic images: Bring a Trailer
Any law or regulation involving vehicles implemented by an HOA.
That’s a good one.
Ontario and their rule about blue flashing lights.
It’s not police there, it’s ambulances.
But wait, there’s more!
Blue lights used to be for snowplows.
Montreal: you’re not allowed to block your own driveway.
That’s the one you pick from Quebec, and not that you cannot turn right on red?
That’s only in Montreal now.
Right on red after stop, please everyone…
I don’t know whether this is a law or lack of law, but whatever allows turn signals to reuse the brake light and/or not be amber. It’s ridiculous that a car in Europe has unambiguous turn signals while the same car in the US will always project doubt; are they braking quickly? is something wrong with their wiring? Are they turning? Are their hazards on? Who knows!
Unfortunately, European regulations have not been updated for the LED-equipped taillamps. More and more people have complained about two issues.
Some taillamps have the thin stripes of brake or amber turn signal indicators adjacent to each other. When both are illuminated, red LED “overwhelms” the amber LED.
Some manufacturers would reduce the size to just two or four LED bulbs (less than square inch), which lead to painful glare at the drivers and passengers behind the vehicles. This Autopian article reflect the issue here…
Tint laws that reference a percentage tint as if that’s how visibility of light works are “dumb”. Most of them fail clear glass, so it’s a harass whatever subset of drivers LEOs don’t like law.
States like Pennsylvania where you can’t drive your Bronco or Jeep doorless. ????
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 😮
You can drive your Jeep doorless in PA, it’s just technically limited to 35 mph. It’s the same for riding in the bed of a pickup truck, 35 mph top speed.
Wel that’s just stupid. Even in Michigan I rode in the back of a pickup truck on I-75. (It was safe. I even had a clothesline to hold onto.)
Enjoy! Don’t forget to wear your seatbelt. Not hurting me.
The 25 year import ban. No one is importing a vehicle from another country purely to get features that don’t exist in the US anymore.
I’d import a new Suzuki Jimny if I could, to get the small manual 4×4 that doesn’t exist in the US anymore.
This subset of the “Right on Red” law in Wisconsin that states…
“- or to turn left from a one-way highway into the nearest lawfully available lane of a one-way highway on which vehicular traffic travels to the left.”
In other words – Left on Red, One Way onto One Way.
I know of only a few intersections in the city of Madison where this would be possible. I use this law to occasionally surprise my friends. But, other than that it is a completely useless law.
I dunno, a left on red one way to one way makes sense in the cities that have em. I agree there are only a handful that is for sure though.
Near where I used to live, in Milwaukee, there was an intersection like that. Sometimes I would make a left on red, just because I could.
The ban in BMW drivers using their blinkers.
That’s a law, right?
More seriously, I’ll second the limits on headlights in America. Having illumination that responds to steering wheel angle would enhance safety, cars from Europe have the tech already, and it can’t be used here. Stupid.
Wait, but my USDM ’23 BRZ headlights DO turn with the wheel… Is this not legal?
Interesting. As I understand it, no, they wouldn’t be. US regs don’t allow the headlights to adjust their focal point, or so I thought.
I’ve been wrong before; I could be wrong here too.
They won’t let the laser lights or multiple element lights into the US.
Perhaps this is what I was thinking of.
My 2012 BMW’s lights swing left to right w/ the steering and the VW purports to do that, but it’s harder to see.
This is common in VAG cars in the US. I don’t know about other manufacturers. Probably isn’t banned. I agree it’s a great feature.
Cats have been sold in the US that had this for over 20 years. My Cadillac ATS had them, my Jaguar XKR has them.
Good to know. Thanks.
Lighting adjustments on the dash for headlight tilt so when our car has a full backseat I’m not blinding everyone.
Our 2010 Mazda CX-7 and 2013 CX-9 both have this.
Probably not the dumbest, but the one I’m most familiar with the failings of: FMVSS 108, which controls all the exterior lighting on motor vehicles. It’s irritatingly vague in some areas, completely behind the times in others, and generally a mess. Not that the EU regulations are perfect, but they’re at least much easier to understand, get updated reasonably quickly as technology advances, and are split into separate documents instead of being one massive tangle of regulation.
Agreed. Several of my gripes are all under FMVSS 108. Red rear turn signals are my biggest beef.
The regulations in Europe are UNECE, not EU.
WP.29 is specific name for the UNECE regulations that govern the motor vehicles.
WP.29 hasn’t been updated for the LED taillamps that have received more and more complaints from the Europeans due to their tendency to blend over, especially with two thin stripes for red brake lamps and amber turn signal indicators, and due to the “microscopic size” that produce the painful glare even during the daylight.
The one that allows you to dump waste material anywhere you drive.
In Florida they put the waste material into what you drive on.
In Michigan, it’s the vehicle that resembles the waste material.
LOL!
Some of these are omissions, but I think there should be laws against them.
I could go on and on and on.
Ontario isn’t perfect but 1: towing over 4500 kg you need a different licence and 2: if there is air or air over hydraulic brakes you need a Z endorsement. Also getting a new ownership takes 5 minutes when you bring your driver’s licence.
Canadians are demonstrably smarter than we are.
Changing ownership of a car isn’t much different here, at least in the city in Maine and county in Florida I live in, assuming your paperwork is in order. Maine is slightly quicker as there is no VIN check.
It cost us a billion dollars in Quebec, but I can now transfer ownership to a buyer in Quebec through a website. All I need is the buyer’s file number at the SAAQ (our DMV). No extra fee either. I even will know if the buyer didn’t accept the ownership.
Also, lost my registration card? (title for those south of the border), just go on the website and print another.
As an IT dude, I am not sure I agree with making it THAT easy to do. That is potentially a very expensive asset that you are easily, and possibly fraudulently, transferring the ownership of.
Dumb law is a non-law.
Cars and trucks must have seatbelts, airbags and other measures to protect drivers and passengers.
A motorcycle rider has to wear clothing (although there are times when that appears to be optional) but not wear a helmet or other protective gear.
Agree completely! Something that is insanely, inherently super unsafe (driving a motorcycle with all these cars/trucks around it with drivers paying zero attention to the road) and then also not have any single iota of safety requirements for it when those giant steel cages flying around get even safer and safer just seems crazy. But at this point to try and get close safety-wise to a car they would have to ban motorcycles entirely which will never happen. And even though I am not a motorcyclist, I actually don’t want a ban like that. I do want a ban on the loud pipes that don’t do anything except annoy people behind the motorcycle.
Those loud exhausts are actually a safety featuhe. Idiots in “flying steel cages” may hear you are there then look and see that they should not squash you. Keep it loud, and you are heard. It’s my biggest gripe about e-motorcycles, no one will hear that I’m there. You getting annoyed is worth a rider not getting unalived.
“Loud pipes save lives” is fictional bullshit.
You know how I know? I’ve ridden thousands of miles on a bicycle. And that Includes plenty of riding on busy city streets. No pipes making any noise there. And you know what kept me alive and not even get injured?
Paying attention to my surroundings, being predictable to surrounding traffic and not riding like an idiot.
I’ve seen too many motorcyclists where the biggest safety improvement they could make is not riding like fucking idiots by NOT doing stuff like wheelies, going WAAAAAY over the speed limit, illegally driving between vehicles and even where ‘filtering’ is legal, I’ve often seen in done at insanely high “I want to be an organ donor” speeds.
If a motorcyclist “needs” loud pipes to save their lives, it’s because they ride like fucking idiots, are incompetent riders or are a combo of those two things.
I’ll add that basically all motorcycles are pretty damn loud (or at least louder than nearly every car around them) but I don’t think anyone is complaining about those. It’s the straight pipes and other severely loud exhausts that are the issue. If you’re depending on deafening your entire surroundings as a safety measure, then you’re probably just being an asshole.
“. It’s the straight pipes and other severely loud exhausts that are the issue.”
And that’s what I’m referring to… the ones so loud you can hear them from several blocks away. I’m not talking about the ones with stock or stock-ish exhausts.
Oh I know I was agreeing. Though what I wrote wasn’t all that clear, lol.
Noisy pipes mostly warn the people behind you. More Annoying than useful.
Useful are headlights that blink hi-lo-hi or taillights that blink a couple of times before they go solid.
Proven myth. Sound doesn’t proceed the object in motion. You’ll only be heard when alongside or ahead of another vehicle.
Thank you, someone finally understands science.
Nobody hears you coming until you’re right next to them. Then what happens is loud pipes guy blips his throttle, which freaks out oblivious cage pilot and if they’re moving, causes them to jerk their head around one way and steering wheel the other way. How do I know this? Watched a jackass loudpipes guy freak out a NJ housewife on the West Side Hwy in Manhattan in traffic. She suddenly veered into him and pushed him into the van on his other side. Oh, yeah, amateur lane splitters.
It’s not law, but I’m irked that my department cannot activate the “collision notification” function of the telematics in our company cars due to employees’ (on-the-job) privacy concerns.
The one that probably most effects me is non auto high beam dimming after Toyota warned them over a decade ago is high up there although some manufacturers seem to be putting them in anyway. A certain wrong coast state driver’s leave their high beams on always and I have been told they dont know what the high beam dash light is.
I’ve always thought the chicken tax was dumb as is the 25 year rule long done political and special corporate interest that need to be trashed.
The upcoming rules on cars automatically monitoring drivers – part of the infrastructure bill. USA Today says: “National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to develop rules that would require new cars to be equipped with technology that “passively monitors the performance of a driver,” identifies whether they may be impaired and prevents or limits motor vehicle operation “if an impairment is detected.”
Yeah, we all know how well that sort of tech will work. How many people will be injured/killed when cars decide to cut you off (and I’m sure the intent will be to pull over, but the tech will in some cases almost certainly just cause the car to die). This is just stupid with the current level of tech.
yeah… I’m not advocating for the Wild West but this is over the top.
I have a friend who used to work in the customer service department for a company that serviced those DUI interlock devices people would have to blow into to get their car to start. Apparently they break with surprising frequency, leaving people stranded and oh so irate.
Most observers to such a situation have little empathy at that point considering it was usually the result of the person driving impaired in the first place. The idea of mandating some kind of similar tech with its similar possibility of leaving people who may have never driven impaired stranded and irate because of “safety” is ridiculous.
Here in PA emissions inspections vary county by county. Populous, urban county, you need tested anually and a CEL is an instant fail. Rural county, anything goes as long as safety (rust) passes. Also, anything driven less than 5K miles a year is exempt. I may or may not have played the milage game with my old 4.0 WJ.
I own enough vehicles in PA to stay under 5k miles on all of them, it helps in this regard.
Chicken Tax, with the Footprint rule as a close second.
Preach! I was going to go with Footprint first but either way, down with the embiggening of trucks!
The reason why I said footprint rule second is since domestic automakers face basically no foreign competition for light trucks even without the footprint rule they would keep making overly large trucks for the most part. Even though Ford came out with the Maverick ~80%+ of the orders were for the XL hybrid and XL Hybrids only made 20% of production.
Now that electric trucks are becoming a thing and they’re so efficient that the footprint rule is basically irrelevant, the main barrier to them being sold in the US is the Chicken Tax because domestic automakers are not selling small electric Trucks.
US headlight regs that prevent the smart Highbeams from being legal here. The sort that dont illuminate oncoming cars but still remain on. That feels very silly.
US lighting regs overall are a sore spot.
It has been amended in 2022 through the act of Congress.
Local dumb law:
Thankfully, I neither live in New York nor own a pickup truck that weighs more than 6000 pounds, but if I did, I’d be forced to put commercial plates on it unless I…put a cap over the bed and affixed seats and three point seatbelts in the bed?
WTaF?
Nationwide dumb law:
The 25-year import ban. Yeah, it’s low-hanging fruit, but in this day and age with safety equipment oozing out of all modern cars, it seems more pointless than ever.
Rhode Island forces you to have “combination” or “commercial” plates on any open-bed vehicle, even a Maverick. It’s always a shock to go to states like California where a school bus wears the same plates as a Smart Fortwo.
Every state has their own way of dividing things. While it may not be so blatantly obvious, it is there for the police to know.
I have no idea about the specifics of NY Law, but in Maine, commercial plates on a truck between 6K-26Klbs (IIRC, whatever the max is for a regular car license) basically just mean you can park in loading zones. And you can get “combination” plates for a regular car or lighter truck for the asking that allows the same. I have had them on my non-antique cars for decades. Convenient. The only downside is back in the day when there were human-operated toll booths in Massachusetts, if the toll attendant noticed they would charge you the commercial toll.
I have a commercial plate on my E63 wagon as I use it to load items in and out of our office in Manhattan for precisely this reason. I got sick of getting tickets doing the run-in and pray game.
Smart! And the same reason I have them – for years I did small-business IT consulting around Portland, ME, so being able to park in loading zones (and also park 2X as long in time-limited zones) was a boon.
Sealed beam headlight mandates gave us uglier imports (some exceptions)Non-adjustable suspension regs from the 70s/80s.
Any state with an EV mandate of any kind.
This probably wins. It’s fascinating to me how as Americans we can get so carried away with “the next big thing” that we lose all perspective on practically.
I used to be convinced that politicians who advocated for and enacted mandates were simply oblivious to the way their constituents depended on gas for their recreation and livelihoods. After all, *they* don’t need to road trip, they fly 1st class or private everywhere, their commutes are done in armored convoys, their errands are done by others, etc. They own multiple homes they can charge at, they don’t have limited vacation time so could linger when travelling, etc. Their “work” is as far from a gas or diesel powered truck as possible. Why would owning an EV be any imposition on their life at all?
I still believe that’s half of it, but the last few years have convinced me that a kind of sneering contempt for those who won’t “get with the program” is another part of this. If you drive a gas car or god forbid a pickup, you deserve to be left in the dust while your betters drive sleek new EVs everywhere.
It’s just unfortunate that every single thing becomes a culture war given enough time. Before everyone gets mad (too late I suspect) the other side is not blameless in this either. I reserve most of my anger on this issue for the side that’s attempting to ban things though.
This is a good take.
I’m intrigued by how the internet has supercharged this – now, it’s not only possible but very likely for large groups of people to get either ardently passionate or deeply outraged about something they’ve just heard about like 10 minutes ago.
(I mean, I used to be largely ambivalent about taillights, but geeze, spend any time here and you all of sudden you turn into a raving fanatic who clutches people’s arms on the street in a sweaty funk)
And companies and politicians all pay attention to this, which seems to result in outcomes about which plenty of those people, when they take a moment to think about it, are at best ambivalent.
You laid this out wonderfully, nailed it.
It’s just meaningless political theater.
You’re entitled to your wrong opinion.
Thank you for this very factual and objective statement.
The what now? 😀
For me, it’s the litany of warning labels required to be affixed in the interior, often appearing on the sun visors but sometimes in other places.
Is anyone – and especially those most likely to do the dangerous thing that’s contraindicated – actually reading these?
Related is how owner’s manuals incorporate these warnings, so jarring and standout that they overwhelm all the other, arguably just as useful info in there.
Agreed. No decal in the world will stop the guy who might roll his Wrangler from doing so. But we have coffee cups that say “Warning: Hot,” and commercials that note “professional driver on a closed course” so you know not to attempt to drive off a cliff and attempt a Top Gun onto your buddy’s Mustang, so the lawyers win again.
This is a good one. I have removed those stupid visor labels from every car I possibly could.
Also the reason for the dumbest recall ever – early Saab 9-5s were recalled because the visor label was too easy to remove. Needless to say, I made damned sure my ’00 9-5SE wagon never got that recall completed. I yanked those things off about 30 seconds after I got the title to the car.
And owner’s manuals are ridiculous – but then again, think about how dumb the average person is, and then realize half of them are dumber than that. Though of course, THOSE people will never open the manual anyway, so I guess there is that.
Removing a child airbag label from a sunvisor might come back to haunt you in the unlikely event that the car is sold to a careless, clueless parent. So I don’t remove them – don’t even know how – but I use beige duct tape to cover them over. They’re an ugly distraction, designed to catch the eye.
I am not all all worried about it.
I really love the car seat airbag warning on my Elise sun visors. Yeah, just try to get any sort of booster seat or car seat into *those* seats.
Mandating sealed beam headlamps in US market cars until the mid 80’s along with minimum light beam height, which made some many imported cars ride much higher, look and handle worse than their home market versions.
Let’s ignore honda illegaly imported cars that didn’t meet federal headlight hieght. When found the law was changed.
And the opposite today – there not being a reasonable MAXIMUM headlight height, so truck and SUV headlights are at eye level to people in normal cars.
+1… that’s a much bigger problem.
I’ve had new trucks with lights so high that I’ve managed to drive under their light beams in my Austin Healey Sprite. It’s crazy how tall they are.
Same with my Spitfire. Sigh.
Pretty much every law in California.
Such as?…
It’s just a trite kneejerk response, usually from people in other states.
Nope. I live in Nannifornia.
Cool. Hand waving an entire state’s automotive laws when in reality you’re just salty about one part of the emissions laws still makes your statement come off as disingenuous.
And I say that as someone who is strongly opposed to *some* of those same laws, but is also smart enough to not paint all the laws with a broad brush.
Or maybe I was having fun with my comment.
Also, the fact that Leno’s law hasn’t passed yet shows how out of touch the lawmakers are. That and the gas ban showing how they know nothing about the industry or the fact that tailpipe emissions are only one part of car emissions.
Well I bristle at uninformed kneejerk opinions about laws in this state that normally come from people who don’t live here. I assumed that was the case here, but apparently not. But I love it when someone in Nebraska thinks they have an informed opinion about how emissions laws in California should work. Cool, then let me share my just as informed opinion on tornado shelter construction.
Also, as one of the staunchest supporters of Leno’s Law (I’m actually a moderator in the Calfornian’s for Classic Car Smog Exemptions Facebook group which has been instrumental in pushing it forward) and a person who would greatly benefit from it, I still don’t think that’s a good example of how lawmakers are out of touch. Opponents of the bill have data which shows that older vehicles pollute WAY more than newer ones, so even with the much smaller pool of older vehicles, exempting many of those older vehicles from smog tests would likely result in a net emissions increase.
As long as that’s true, then any arguments FOR the bill (keeping car culture alive, increasing revenue for businesses that support those cars, removing hurdles for older car owners because smog shops that will still dyno test are getting harder to find, etc.) can still easily be overruled by the argument of net reduction in emissions and the resulting health benefits. I don’t like this, but at the end of the day IMO that would be a valid justification for most people to shoot down the bill for the greater good of the populace, not an example of how lawmakers are out of touch.
Of course the same could be said about the upcoming major fuel price increase due to the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. I’m a lot more conflicted about that. I’m fortunate enough to absorb a 60c/gal fuel price increase. Many are not.
Not sure what your point is about automotive emissions not only being from the tailpipe. You’re absolutely correct, which is why the state performs a pressure test on the fuel evap system and still requires a visual check under the hood to make sure all components, including PCV for oil vapor, are intact and working. It’s also why we can only buy the stupid fuel cans which leak more than the old school ones.
That’s a lot of writing. This is why car talk is best at the bar over some beers lol.
I totally understand your reaction. Lot’s of people that know nothing about California like to have baseless opinions on it.
The thing is, those polluting cars are already here on a Montana plate. There will be no real increase in pollution, just an increase in tax revenue. No one is going to trade in their 2023 Camry to drive a 1988 Camry to work. The lawmakers and the lobbyist against this don’t seem to under stand this. Doug DeMuro just recently talked about the insane number of exotics that are registered in Montana on his podcast. I’m sure most of those are here in the Bay and LA.
The other emissions I was referring to is brake and tire emissions. Brake pads may not be asbestos anymore, but they still have plenty carcinogens. EV’s’ are heavy and eat tires. All that rubber goes somewhere (I’m not anti EV, I love my Ioniq 5). My point is, they are only looking at the gasoline related emissions and not all the emissions as a whole. Plus the damage to infrastructure from heavy EV’s. Lots of pollution from the construction equipment used to repair the roads. They just said “We’ll get rid of tailpipe emissions. Problem solved”
I couldn’t get my speedo fixed because the state says reprogramming my ecu so my speedo reads correct is an emissions issue. The car is bone stock except for a different tire size and rear end.
I for one enjoy the cleanish air the emissions requirements help provide….
Logic doesn’t enter the discussion with CARB.