Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

New York State rolled out a new inspection machine for vehicle inspections that prints it's own inspection stickers. The rollout has been delayed almost the entire year because they can't get the damn things to work right, and they finally told us it's ready for prime time.

The first step is that you have to scan the VIN. You go to scan it using the NY DMV-issued registration stickers, and it doesn't read the barcode right and it chops the first digit off the VIN. So you have to manually enter the VIN, and it screeches at you wanting to know why you're manually entering the VIN. 

Then it has to take a photo of you. It won't take the photo if you're wearing a hat, and even you wear glasses, it won't take the photo unless you remove them also.

You have to plug it into the car with the car running for it to read the OBD data. About 75% of the time, you plug it in, and it sits there and says that while it made the connection, it doesn't detect RPM. You then have to unhook the OBD cable, wait 30 seconds and try again. Repeat if it doesn't detect RPM the second time.

Then it prints the sticker and it wants you to scan a QR code on the sticker to log the number into the system. You scan the QR code, and it says it doesn't recognize the sticker number that it just printed. So then you have to manually type in the sticker number, and again it screeches at you wanting to know why you're manually entering the number.

I swear, this state could berkeley up an anvil with a feather.

My dad manages the domain I use for e-mail. We've used Google for hosting and services for a long time. Now he has decided he wants to shift to another service, but I want to remain in the Google ecosystem. We use the Google suite and Google drive as an inherent part of shared work at the brewery. I need a Google account to access that.

Creating a new Google account and transitioning over to that is ultimately what is going to be least frustrating in the long run.

But the process of transitioning everything over to a new account and new e-mail address is going to suck for a while.

Related rant: Don't ask me "If I do this, is that going to work for you?" if you do not want to hear the answer.

In reply to NickD :

Put the team that designed it into a round padded room with two large ball bearings. In five minute's time, they'll have lost one and broken the other. I hate bureaucracy.

In reply to NickD :

Insert patio-skirting anti-bureaucracy comment here.

In defense of the NYS in, inspection system. The last system was really good, it was very hard to defeat, it caught emissions issues and safety issues, which is the point. When I go to non inspection states, like Florida or South Carolina I see tons of cars that have no business being on the road. I hope they sort this sytem out quickly. 

trigun7469 said:

 

My neighbors who are nice ...

Your neighbours are not nice.

NY Nick said:

In defense of the NYS in, inspection system. The last system was really good, it was very hard to defeat, it caught emissions issues and safety issues, which is the point. When I go to non inspection states, like Florida or South Carolina I see tons of cars that have no business being on the road. I hope they sort this sytem out quickly. 

I'd rather deal with unsafe cars than the bureaucracy. One of them is avoidable if you are paying attention. 

SC used to have a state safety inspection. A study 25 years ago determined that it did very little to make cars safer but was a great source of corruption so they abolished it. Unsurprisingly, there wasn't a huge increase in safety-related car crashes. As of last year, it wasn't even on the list of common causes of car crashes in the state. Speed still tops that list, followed by failure to yield. I'm surprised to see distracted driving is 5th on the list. I would have thought that it would be much closer to #1.  

Toyman! said:

Speed still tops that list, followed by failure to yield. I'm surprised to see distracted driving is 5th on the list. I would have thought that it would be much closer to #1.  

How often is distracted driving the only factor in a crash? How often do people recognize and admit that they were distracted? How do you tell they were distracted otherwise?

It's entirely likely that it was a significant factor in the other Top 4 most common causes of accidents.

Somewhat related:

Saturday afternoon. Quiet neighborhood - the only thing in the nieghborhood are an elementary school and houses. You're not cutting through this area to get anywhere, you're either going to a house or getting out of the neighborhood. 

My wife, 3.5 year old daughter, and 120lb Great Pyrenees are in the crosswalk. I'm near there. There is a yield sign. A Subaru a block away driven by a fossil starts to drift into the left lane. I tell my wife to stop. Sure enough, this classmate of Abe Vigoda goes right on through the intersection, 5 feet from my wife dog and child in the crosswalk. 

She clearly saw them - she moved into the left lane. So she failed to yield for a yield sign, she failed to yield to pedestrians, and she drove on the wrong side of the road to break those other two laws. Infuriating. Wish I had my phone on me, I'd have taken a picture of the license plate and taken it to the police.

State inspections are a challenge for me. I'll probably never allow them in mine when I enter politics (they basically just tax the poor) but 3/4ths the patients I declared dead or were serious trauma in a car accident had vehicles that were so rusty I could visibly see how it shattered in the crash. One of my wildest calls I couldn't even tell you the make or model of the truck involved because it was so past it's threshold it literally tore apart and we couldn't find badging.

I used to hear people pine for older steel cars thinking they were safer than modern, E36 M3 would make my eye twitch.

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

Inspections don't always stop that, however.  A close family member of mine lives in NY, has to get his car inspected annually...and the last time I was underneath the car, I went and told him he needed to scrap that POS out as soon as he got home, I was afraid it was going to split in half it was so rusty.  

PA apparently has stricter laws about corrosion.  

MD (where I live now) has reasonable inspection laws.  Vehicle has to be inspected when it changes hands, and there's a bi-annual emissions inspection that's DIY at a kiosk and costs $10.  

I used to be vehemently anti-inspection, but as I grow older and begin to fully grasp the crisis of competency and consideration that has overcome this country, I think a simple baseline Autocross-inspired inspection should be required:

• No rust-through on under-car components
• No leaks in the brake system, good pedal
• All lights functioning
• Tire minimum tread depth
• No visible tailpipe smoke
• Battery and fuel tank secure
• Windshield no spiders in driver's line of sight

Recon1342 said:

In reply to NickD :

Put the team that designed it into a round padded room with two large ball bearings. In five minute's time, they'll have lost one and broken the other. I hate bureaucracy.

But, could they find a missing jet?

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

Illinois' are decent. First, it is only in highly populated areas - 9 counties and parts of 2 others, out of 102. Then, it is every 2 years for vehicles over a certain age. Nothing before 1996. 

I just wish they'd have a point where cars could age out of the need. At a certain point, it becomes more expensive to keep up with the emissions requirements than the vehicle is worth, and that becomes a tax on the poor as Girthquake alluded to. I've sold cars in Wisconsin and Michigan specifically because they wouldn't pass Illinois emissions - too nice to scrap, not nice enough to repair. 

Recon1342 said:

In reply to NickD :

Put the team that designed it into a round padded room with two large ball bearings. In five minute's time, they'll have lost one and broken the other. I hate bureaucracy.

I just repeated this line to a co-worker.  He literally laughed out loud, and told me I'd brightened up his difficult afternoon.  

Oh, wait, sorry, this is the _rant_ thread.  Uhhh...Don't you just hate airports???

mtn said:

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

Illinois' are decent. First, it is only in highly populated areas - 9 counties and parts of 2 others, out of 102. Then, it is every 2 years for vehicles over a certain age. Nothing before 1996. 

I just wish they'd have a point where cars could age out of the need. At a certain point, it becomes more expensive to keep up with the emissions requirements than the vehicle is worth, and that becomes a tax on the poor as Girthquake alluded to. I've sold cars in Wisconsin and Michigan specifically because they wouldn't pass Illinois emissions - too nice to scrap, not nice enough to repair. 

Logical.  MD has a rolling 20 year period for "Historic" registration, which is basically how you get out of having a vehicle inspected.  Realistically I think the cutoff ought to be anything OBDII and newer, low hanging fruit there. 

Likewise, anything less than 5 years old is probably not going to be a safety hazard, unless it's been wrecked.  So maybe a rolling period of anything built from 1996 till 5 years ago that needs to be inspected (safety + emissions) every 2 years.  

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

I don't know if it is still the case, but there was a time in my life when a car would pass PA's "no visible rust-through" inspection via duct tape.

DE does state-run safety and emissions inspections at the DMV.  Just put the S60 through it this morning.

• Brake dyno that measures stopping force per wheel and checks for L/R and F/R balance.
• Tire tread check, all 4 tires
• Lights check, all 4 corners
• Glass check
• Wiper check
• Horn check
• Visual body check
• OBD-II plug-in check for 1996 and newer, sniffer for 1975-1995, no emissions check for pre-1975
• Smoking is an automatic fail

This takes about 15 minutes plus another 5-10 minutes for paperwork at the drive-through window (not including wait time if it's busy).  I got there at about 8:15 this morning and was done and away before 8:40.

New cars don't need inspection or renewal for 5 years after initial registration.  For used cars it's every 2 years maximum ($80), or every year if you only want to pay $40.

In reply to volvoclearinghouse :

I forgot to mention that for your typical civilian passenger vehicle for personal use, it is just the OBDII emissions scan. While that doesn't do anything for physical safety, it kinda does a de-facto safety check. If your car is so rusted to be a safety concern, the chances that someone is spending the money on a cat or charcoal canister are pretty slim.

The emissions test is free, you go to one of 20? locations, you can look up wait times... Including driving there and back, it is typically a 40-60 minute excursion for us and we usually go into the office to renew our registration at the same time.

GIRTHQUAKE said:

State inspections are a challenge for me. I'll probably never allow them in mine when I enter politics (they basically just tax the poor) but 3/4ths the patients I declared dead or were serious trauma in a car accident had vehicles that were so rusty I could visibly see how it shattered in the crash. One of my wildest calls I couldn't even tell you the make or model of the truck involved because it was so past it's threshold it literally tore apart and we couldn't find badging.

I used to hear people pine for older steel cars thinking they were safer than modern, E36 M3 would make my eye twitch.

The difference is, down here vehicles don't rust. The 62 Falcon my kids bought me has less rust than a 2022 anything from the salt states. 

In reply to Toyman! :

I understand that. Rust sucks, it is why there is rarely a DD in New York (at least upstate) that is more than 20 years old. My reason for not hating inspections is more on emissions than safety. Yes I like cars that have functioning lights, brakes and shocks but you go to SC and you see people driving a 92 Accord that is smoking and smells horrible, you know it is polluting all over but there is no check. I know it can be painful and promote bureaucracy but it does have some positives. 

Sorry for not ranting, I will work on it :-) 

Appleseed said:

In reply to Antihero :

I don't disagree.

But...money can't buy happiness.

Being broke can't buy E36 M3.

My dad's saying is:

Money can't buy happiness, but lack of a certain amount guarantees misery.

He's right, the secret is not to make money your sole form of happiness or at least your only access to happiness.

Antihero said:

Appleseed said:

In reply to Antihero :

I don't disagree.

But...money can't buy happiness.

Being broke can't buy E36 M3.

My dad's saying is:

 

Money can't buy happiness, but lack of a certain amount guarantees misery.

 

He's right, the secret is not to make money your sole form of happiness or at least your only access to happiness.

My dad and I were talking once about how we never really understood the whole "can't do this cause the wife says no" or "nagging wife/mom" comedic trope. My mom, and now my wife, have basically always let us do what we want for fun - I can remember two times that my mom put her proverbial foot down and neither were a ship we were willing to go down with. My wife has nearly the same attitude and "puts up" with all of my hobbies and schemes. 

Dad commented, something along the lines of "we've never had serious financial issues in our marriage, which helps, a lot more than you could imagine". And that is true. 

Money may not buy happiness, but it can buy safety and security, which sure make happiness a lot easier to find. 

That also plays into my Grandpa's motto: If it isn't immoral or illegal and you can afford it, do it.

In reply to mtn :

That's pretty much how things worked here.  I was never told no, and I never said no, but when money was tight we pointed it out to each other that something probably wasn't a good idea at the time.  

In reply to mtn :

I started carrying a brick in the hellspawn's wagon. It's going through the nearest window if a car try's to murder me and/or the boy. I hope they stop. I hope they get out.  Because all Hell won't stop me.

In reply to Appleseed :

Good luck... I'm a 6'1" 285 lb. man, usually wearing bright clothing, and I am apparently invisible in cross walks.  Just a couple weeks ago, crossing the street at a controlled intersection (painted crosswalk, lights, I had the walk sign, broad berkeleying daylight) I made it across four lanes with one to go when the occupant of that lane decide that was the time to suddenly turn right on red.  It was an old woman.  Missed me by inches.

volvoclearinghouse said:

In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :

Inspections don't always stop that, however.  A close family member of mine lives in NY, has to get his car inspected annually...and the last time I was underneath the car, I went and told him he needed to scrap that POS out as soon as he got home, I was afraid it was going to split in half it was so rusty.  

PA apparently has stricter laws about corrosion.  

MD (where I live now) has reasonable inspection laws.  Vehicle has to be inspected when it changes hands, and there's a bi-annual emissions inspection that's DIY at a kiosk and costs $10.  

I used to be vehemently anti-inspection, but as I grow older and begin to fully grasp the crisis of competency and consideration that has overcome this country, I think a simple baseline Autocross-inspired inspection should be required:

• No rust-through on under-car components
• No leaks in the brake system, good pedal
• All lights functioning
• Tire minimum tread depth
• No visible tailpipe smoke
• Battery and fuel tank secure
• Windshield no spiders in driver's line of sight

The scariest E36 M3 I see on the road around here is rusted stuff from up North, usually with NY or NJ sports ball stickers or vanity plates.