http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa-249.html

I totally agree with this article except for one or two anecdotal proposals, mainly that I think it should be almost entirely remote sensing based. The fact that its photo enforced doesnt sit well but it is the extreme lesser of two evils in my book when compared to the I/M testing done now that tries to govern way too many of the inputs.

This would certainly motivate me to build a clean running car which is something the current system doesnt do
One thing the article doesnt mention is that with this system you could totally eliminate the whole smog E.O. number BS and allow the consumer to his own devices its also cheaper for the government and obviously would be way more effective.

The emissions program in place right now reeks of socialism. Maybe its because I tend to think of governmental issues more often than most people but the current system disturbs me greatly and needs to be fought on every level.

 

It won't happen. Money talks, and the state of Ca gets paid what amounts to exthortion from manufacturers to give them C.A.R.B. eo numbers. That is one reason why so much of the aftermarket is in the hands of Edlebrock, Holley, and Mr Gasket. Only big corporations can afford to pay Ca. for the C.A.R.B. eo numbers and the testing that goes with it. For instance, it cost Accel millions to get a C.A.R.B. eo number for the Super Ram. If you look through the Holley catalog and see how much stuff they make that is not smog legal. Check out how many aftermarket cams are available that will work with smog controls, but are not smog legal. It is simply because the cam grinder soesn't want to spend or can't afford to spend the price to get it certified. By the same token, that is why a set of headers by a manufacturer that is not certified can be sold for $150.00 or less, but as soon as they get an eo number the price goes to $300.00 or more.

 

one problem.


the likely outcome would be that you still have your EO numbers, your inspections, your emmissions testing, ect...

except now, you get to pay a fine if your car doesnt meet their status, and you get hit with a remote sensor camera.



this is akin to speeding cameras.... most of the world uses them instead of cops.. but in the us, the supreme court ruled them illegal.




im just glad im registered in South carolina..... no front plate, no emmisions testing, no inspections, nothing.... pay your registration and taxes every year and you're set.

 

If this is about what I think it is... the remote roadside sensors, thats a BAD idea. Remember my friend Jerry? His dad was in the middle of the development team of that stuff. They developed it for an entirely different reason, and then Cali caught wind of it and wanted to use it for just that, remote roadside testing. They told them its not accurate enough and is prone to error based upon too many different things.

 

I see how they want it to work, but realistically I don't see how it can determine what water vapor, dust, or other things are in the air affecting the beam. I would propose that if it is put in, there only be fines given when a certain plate number is taken a number of times. They would have to do some research to figure out the average number of false readings clean cars get and such, to prevent faulty fines. If they can get around that, which doesn't even seem like a huge obstacle, it seems like a fine idea.

 

well if you read the article MadMax youd see that that was addressed heavily. The accuracy is much better than you think and even when its inaccurate its many tiimes more likely to issue a false pass than a false fail.


another thing youll find is that camera enforced speeding is not illegal in the US and it is infact being used in a few places. The article goes into this and makes a strong argument that this is not analagous to speeding cameras anyway.

as for carb E.O. numbers, the blueprint laid out for photo enforced smog specifically states that the inneficiencies with the current program are because it is input driven and the goal is to make the program output driven. It would be a waste of time to look under peoples hoods if the end goal of clean air was achieved.. that is the end goal right?


You all really ought to read the article, I know its a bit of a read but it is extremely indepth and unless you are heavily into this stuff I doubt you will find anything not covered.

 

It doesn't make any difference what the artical says. If it doesn't provide a revenue source to replace the millions of $ that the state gets everytime a manufacturer of aftermarket parts buys an e o number, it won't fly. The use of a chasis dyno to test for smog in the exhaust under load makes a visual inspection obsolete anyway, but they won't eliminate visual because the state wants to continue to extort money for C.A.R.B. eo numbers, and to do that they have to have visual inspections.

 

Didnt you read what I wrote? The guy was on the design team. You dont get any more accurate information than that.

 

I take it you still havent read the paper. Its hard to refute hard data with "My cousins friends friends brother knows a guy...."

 

This system is many many times cheaper to the state. So if the goal is revenue, it would make more sense not to spend revenues in the first place on an inefficient system.

 

now if some people are getting some under the table benefits from the CARB e.o. process then that is just dishonesty and all the more reason to do away with it.

 

Well, I'm sorry. I cant argue with a guy who read an article on the internet.

 

LoL I take it you havent heard of the Cato institute. They are a conservative think tank that has been around a long while and they arent known for producing reports based on shaky ground, after all they have alot of pull in washington.

If you watched meet the press/face the nation/ hannity & colmes/ oreilly factor, etc etc you would see representatives from the cato institute on regularly. So no, it wasnt some high school kid that wrote this for their class.

I dont know why you are so afraid to read the thing, maybe its because it might make sense and youd look like you were jumping to conclusions (which you are)

 

I could care less who they are. Just because people or institutions are well known doesnt make them smart or right.

And BTW all that article says is that the device is error prone, and by magic of statistical anomaly, they can magically make the error problems go away. Sure they can. Not to mention they dont say a thing about the cost to the taxpayer. Right now, the taxpayer does not pay for the testing machines, but in this case they would. That money is coming from where exactly?

And I'm not afraid of anything besides stupid people, they are dangerous.

 

THe taxpayer doesnt pay for the testing machines? Uh then why did my friend have to pay 80 some odd dollars to have his car tested the other day? I dont think the guy doing the test earned 80 dollars in 20 minutes.

Is the goal to have clean air or to have an exact measurement of every cars emissions at 15 and 25 mph? If its to have clean air then complete accuracy is not important since gross polluters account for 8the vast majority of the polution. We just need a system that nabs gross polluters and leaves everyone else alone.
Why make the other 80% of people suffer? That would be communist.

 

I think you oughta read the section on costs and revenue (its a few sections) again

 

The tax payer does not pay for the testing machines. Independant shops paid for the dynomometers. No tax payer has to pay anything for smog testing. All new cars are exempt from smog testing for 4 or 5 years. Buy new cars and trade them off before a smog test is due and you won't ever have to pay for a smog test.

 

I think this is one reason for all this emissions hooplah in California:
(pic taken by me on 11/5/03 at the top of the Hollywood hills)

 

exactly, thats why the current system needs to go away for a more effective one

 

The indians called this area smoke valley. That was before internal combustion engines or anything else, FYI.

No news.

 

Indirectly we the people pay for ALL the smog testing, thru tax dollars and smog check fees and DMV fees (read your vehicle license renewal on where the money goes).
So Cal was called the Valley of the Smoke before white men were here, the Indians wrote about how their campfire smoke would rise then level off. Any valley area such as ours with the wind blowing in from the ocean and a higher wind from the desert holding the lower air in the valley has pollution, it is now called a inversion layer. No amount of pollution devices will do away with the natural cap we have here all we can do is try and reduce the amount of pollution.
Motor vehicles in So Cal now produce very little of the pollution here, the majority comes from big rigs, refinerys, electrical generating plants and other big money sources. They pick on cars because we are not a collective group such as the trucking industry and connot lobby against what now amounts to BS.
They need to get off the cars and concentrate on the other sources of smog. Like lawn mowers and fireplaces.
Roadside meters are a joke, with the amount and concentration of vehicles on our freeways they cannot possibly determince accurately which vehicle is polluting.
FYI even the CATO institute relys on data from outside sources they just hope they get the right data.
And you all know the government does not minupliate data. And if you believe that I have a swamp for sale.

 

Tom said it above, the people pay for ALL of the smog testing.

I disagree with the statement that remote sensing cannot determine which vehicle is polluting. Sure if you tried to set up shop on a freeway it would not work but there are thousands of onramps that provide an ideal place to put a load on the vehicle while it is alone. Is it possible for cars to get through without being caught do to other factors? probably, but just think of the cars that do get caught... they are probably leaving a pretty good trail of crap in the air behind them. They can dodge the bullet once or maybe twice but not every time.

I dont doubt the system would have bugs but right now there is no incentive for companies to develop the technology further. Sort of like the cold war and our military. No arms race = much slower development of weaponry.

Is it something that could be implemented and work over night? no but I think its definately the direction we should be headed.

 

During the test runs a few years ago that is exactly where the test machines were set up - on up hill on ramps which is not a legimitate test location, first it is uphill vehicle is under nonnormal strain, the other is that people accelerate differently, tell me you have never been behind someone how is still only doing 40mph at the end of a ramp that most drivers are doing 65 at the end of.
So if you give 3/4 throttle your pollutants will register higher then if you 1/4 throttle. So at 1/4 throttle you pass the test, but at 3/4 throttle you fail and a copy your smiling face and license plate are mailed to you with a fix it ticket. Sound fair.
Also most gross polluters are visable, and the owners mostly fall into the proverty level so they don't have to fix their cars and if they do the first $400 is paid by you and me thru taxes.
Since Pablo thinks these roadside sniffers are the cats meow I assume he will be the slowest accelerating car in Southern calif.

 

Yea, lets put one on that onramp eh?

 

Well, I can't see the on-ramp idea working either. When is the last time in L.A. you were on an on-ramp alone? And as madmax stated, everyone drives differently so you won't get consistent testing results. Take rush hour for example. How can you get an accurate reading on an individual vehicle when cars are stacked bumper to bumper and crawling onto the freeway at 10 to 15 mph?

Also, what about the city and state vehicles? Ever been behind a school bus, MTA bus, garbage truck...and so on? Those things pump out volumes of black smoke as they go down the road. Head up a test equipped on-ramp behind a bus and I wonder who will get a notice in the mail? It won't be the agency the bus belongs to. Odds are you'll get notified and then have to protest the ticket.

Testing individual vehicles under controlled conditions as it's done now is the better way to go. The biggest change I think would help would be to remove the strict visual inspections and base the test mainly on the tail pipe sniffer. Aftermarket parts should be allowed without C.A.R.B. E.O. numbers. If the car passes the sniff test, then it shouldn't matter whats on the engine.

 

WORD

 

To many frikin people living here now that's the problem. It seems they are doing there best to better the freeways by fixing the really congested areas making more lanes and more off ramps in certain area's. And if the people that don't know how to drive would take some driving courses there be less accidents which just causes more pollution rolling bumper to bumper b/c someone was talking on the phone picking there nose and rear end someone and cause 8,000 cars to still be running instead of there final destination point. All these Big diesel Rigs are causing most of the pollution as there is so many transporting every thing and they have the drive 55mph, there on the roads the longest, just polluting the air away,led alone there the ones running the longest and even sitting sleeping etc. Kinda off subject but those are my thoughts.

 

Branden, you have a good point, I agree.

Anyways, about the CARB numbers....
Its all a big crock, its all about the money, as someone stated above. You dont think the state is raking in millions in revenue from that stuff? I'm willing to bet they make their fair share of cash from it (charging companies to have their products certified), and then it's used for other stuff. States cost a lot of money to run....which includes paying greedy politicians who know nothing about this stuff except for the money thats sitting in front of them...
And no, I didnt read the article yet as I'm tired, so I may be way off topic here, but there seems to be some confusion about whether this costs the state, or whether the state is making money from this stuff, and my opinion is the latter.

 

who said the test had to be covert? if you set up a ramp as a test spot you can simply let drivers know that they are passing through a test zone and to keep their acceleration consistent and proper spacing between vehicles. This may take manning the individual sensors but it would still do a better job and could probably be done with less money than the current system being that each individual test only takes a fraction of the time, energy, and doesnt waste time with people who are not polluters or even marginal polluters.

Now I dont know exactly how these systems work but as its described in a number of places it works off of percentages of the total CO2 emitted by the vehicle and granted it may not be totally linear but the total co2 emitted by a vehicle probably closely resembles the amount of load its under

if acceleration was such a concern, speed and acceleration could be factored into the reading. It might sound somewhat complex but well within the reach of american free market ingenuity.

The main reason the dyno sniffer test doesnt work is because people know its coming and its also extremely invasive to my privacy and my wallet.

When people see the end goal of simply getting that sheet of paper that says pass rather than not tripping off some dadgum dirty exhaust sensor they dont care what their car emits. Take me for example, I have no incentive to make my car a clean running car. Neither do ANY of my car guy buddies and I dont just mean a few. Of the racer friends of mine that have their cars registered here NOT ONE of them has had their car legally smogged. The clean cut honesty of this message board surprises me quite frankly.

It was the same in Miami when we had smog tests. The only people the test affected were those that didnt know anybetter. Those that did found ways around it.

Now dont get me wrong, I am no environmental activist, actually I see the environmental movement on the whole just as a socialist movement cloaked as a sheep. This is why this sort of stuff gets alot of my attention. There are also strong arguments to be made that if we are changing our environment permanently it might be wiser or more advantageous to just live with the results rather than trying to fight them (global warming? Yay, better weather, longer growing seasons, more farming land.. and thats all if it even exists which if if does is probably a natural occurance)

That said, locally, air could be better for more short term reasons, and it is getting better, much better year by year because of the technology coming out of detroit even though millions more cars are on the road than since they first started documenting this stuff.

Ideally there should be no emissions testing but we dont live in a perfect world.. could we get away with that here in CA and not have the air go to hell in a handbasket? I dont know, maybe, even probably, with the amount of fraud that goes on with the current system it may not change a thing to have it or not to have it. (Like in FL where the emissions test really did not do anything for the air which is why we got rid of it)

I think emissions testing is here to stay though and if we are going to have it why not have a form of it that promotes capitalism and freedom whille being more efficient at what it does.

Targeting the gross polluters (effectively reducing the cause of the vast majority of automotive pollution)would also send a message to those idiots with greenpeace, elf, etc etc that high standards for air quality can be achieved without their socialist agenda of forcing us all into the same electric cars like in the movie "Gattica".

It would take pressure off of washington legislators to pass more stringent federal epa laws for auto manufaturers, including the CAFE which is constantly being pressured to be raised by environmental groups.
If a system were devised that was so effective at proving the point that the problem lies not with the internal combustion but with a few specific sources which may or not happen to be internal combustion engines the focus would shift to the individuals. As individuals, the free market is challenged to respond and youll see all kinds of free thinking american ideas rising to the challenge rather than governed to do X, y , Z that some greenpeace ******* pressured his liberal congressman into proposing as law.



to touch on some points brough up above, no the state is probably losing money. No government agency ever makes money i think the only one that ever makes anymone is the US mint surprisingly.. they produce alot of crap old people buy as souvenirs. The amount of bureacracy involved with the california -fill in the blank here, but especially smog program- is STAGGERING. I spent three months on a ship in the pacific surfing the internet looking at text based sites since it was so slow dealing with this stuff because of a debate and a book i was reading at the time and you cannot even begin to scrape the surface to see every facet of this socialist behemoth.

I am not one for conspiracy theories either. I dont know why americans are so enamored by them since they rarely if ever prove to be true. I think the only conspiracy is the pure idiocy of the program and its input oriented posture. I dont think anyone devised the carb E.o. process to line their pockets, someone just forgot to pick up "The wealth of nations" by adam smith (musta grabbed communist manifesto instead)
Are there people lining their pockets because of the current system? Probably, but you can bet it was an after the fact adaptation to the cards dealt to those individuals.. thats the american way. There will be people making money off of ANY system and likewise there will be those who call it a conspiracy.

Its just capitalism man.

 

it almost sounds as though tom was implying that my car was polluting quite a bit coming up that onramp by your house... but fear not that wasnt my exhaust, that was just the proverbial dust you eat when you get out-run

 

btw I meant to comment on this, I dont see why up an onramp up hill is a non normal strain.. its normal in that millions of people put the same amount of strain on their vehicles daily. Why is that any less normal than lashing your car down to a pair of drums and then holding a constant tps position at 15 and 25 mph? Besides that, like i said above, the systems seem to run off of percentage of total CO2 emitted in which case the load wouldnt be such a huge discriminating factor. Even if it was, the current test as it is favors those with heavier vehicles. They easily fool the dyno test but emit much more just driving around town getting 3900 lb of luxury car moving (hehehe ) see above for the speed and acceleration thing.. who said they couldnt be factored in.



Now this is not true (the part about them being visible), I had a 4 cyl pickup truck that would be black listed in california. BAck when we had emissions in FL we just had an idle test and this thing was so rediculously filthy it failed with a reading of nearly 2000 ppm on the HC at idle. The limit in FL was 220 i think in CA its like 150. If you had any visible smoke from your exhaust they would not test you in FL either so it wasnt like you could tell with your eyes.
Have seen this same thing on more than one occasion eg. a buddies econoline 350 ford with a 351, 1500 ppm hc at idle.. and moving that behemoth most certainly made that probably the most aggregious gross polluter I ever knew and there was nothing visible in the exhaust.

Were we poor, sure, in the sense that HS kids are poor, but not welfare recipients or anything. It wasnt because we were poor that the cars were dirty anyways. We just didnt care. We had ways around HAVING to care anyways.

I always save it for the track you know that

 

why dont you guys b!tch to your humvee driving governer..... hes alot more likely to listen about this then the old gov.....

 

No need to bitch about it, just an open intelligent discussion/debate. And G 0d bless that man for driving his humvee, if thats what he wants. Hes living the american dream. We need to celibrate that sort of thing. That thing is probably cleaner than an 87 volvo some eco-hippy drives plastered with "save the rainforest" stickers anyways. Not that it matters...

 

My dad's and my car both have passed the smog test and are legally smogged. I dunno where you get that line.

I just wish they would get rid of the visual test and the CARB EO requirement for parts. Who cares what is under the hood as long as the tailpipe is clean?

 

Well from what you have written, you weren't around in the 60's, 70's and 80's were your eyes burn 3/4s of the time and it was hard to breathe during the year and one thought the color of the sky was brown. You never came down from the mountains only to see this brown layer covering the cities. If you didn't know any better, you would swear the wasn't any cities because you couldn't even see the skyscrapers.

And yes the cars are getting better but in the last couple of years OUR air is getting worse. Why? SUVs. SUV emit 2-3 times the emissions the a car does. My facts you say? Right from the techs at GM. That's why starting next year, SUVs will have to meet the same standards as the cars do.

The system isn't perfect. Like Kevin says, make it so long as you can pass the sniffer, go for it.

Glenn who likes blue skies, to be able to see the mountains only a mile away and be able to take a deep breath of air without my lungs burning.

 

Because the test standards are based on constant (and I might add quite low) load on a flat road. The testing procedure is already concocted as it is, the NOx numbers are out of a hat... thats why they change every year. Last thing we need is the state coming up with new standards.

 

I dont know how you can infer that I had no idea there was a smog problem in the 70s from what I said. I know full well that the air in LA during the 70s was pretty terrible. I also know full well that it has gotten many many times better and continues to get better. I have heard the line about the air is getting worse in the past few years because of SUVs well I did the research and that is not true. I think the only pollutant that is increasing in the atmosphere is NOx (you can find all this info on the CARB site)

I dont know if you think that I think we should have dirty air. If that were the case I wouldnt think we needed a more effective system. Im not sure if you think that I/M emissions testing is the reason the air quality got better. I'd disagree, probably played a small part but federal standards on new cars, the advent of fuel injection etc was probably a bigger factor.

Uh, I dont disagree with that, they emit more because they weigh more even if they pass with exactly the same numbers as a car on the rollers

now do you want cleaner air or just for people to pass the smog test because as it stands right now my buddies carbed 347 in his LX notch without any emissions equipment whatsoever has "passed the sniffer" among other similar things I have seen. What I am talking about is a system that allows people to do whatever the hell they want to their cars so long as its not grossly polluting when they drive it around, not the once every two years when they can make adjusments/bribes to pass the smog test. They need to stop worrring about reducing pollutants out of allready clean cars by fractions of a gram. If they want to make a bigger difference they should go after the real source and leave people alone



and kevin, thats why i specifically stated that this board SURPRISED me since most of you seem to have passed smog legally which is something I cant say about any other car guys I know out here. I dont blame them though, the government has no business telling people specifically how they need to meet a certain goal.

madmax, I still dont see how absolute accuracy and test procedure is that much of a concern. When we are talking about gross polluters we arent talking about fractions of a gram of pollutant differences beween clean and dirty, dirty is 1500 ppm of hc like the example I gave above, clean is 13 ppm like my buddies 95 z28. It would seem to me that with all of the technology advancements that CARB has forced on the auto industry that the auto industry has met and even exceeded that the remote sensing industry could come up with equipment (indeed they allready do) that can tell me which car was the dirty one if I drove by in my old pickup and my buddy drove by in his Z28

 

Let's see. A road side tester is the best way to smog cars...hmmm...a smoggy day, gross polluter, wind and sun all have a factor in the readings. That's way most States that used the road side sniffer dropped it.

And as far as going after the "real" polluters, just look at the chemical, plating, printing and paint industies just to name a few.
AQMD is so strict that billions have been spent to clean their plants and a lot have moved out of State.

 

All depends Pablo. Cars as they age do not run as clean, from worn internal components to less effective converters and EGR's from clogging and the like. The limits are there for a reason. I can assure you that if the state were to go with your idea, they would run right along that line. 1ppm over, you're screwed. They will never change the standard, thats how government operates.

Sig test!

 

I'm with Glenn. I can't see how you'd get an accurate reading using a roadside sniffer. There would be waaay too many "contaminates" affecting the reading. It would be kind of like asking someone for a urine sample by having them pee in a pool first, then collect the water sample.

 

First Pablo I was not picking on your car, just using you as an example.
How do they set the standard for the roadside sniffer.
A hybrid is almost non polluting.
Every engine, trans, and rearend and tire combination create a different amount of pollution. That is why all mfgs went to corporate drive train combos in the 80's. It costs $250,000.00 to certify one drive train combo and involves a year of testing.
So lets say they set a mininum, based on a 6 cyl Studebaker.
With that standard every 4 cly vehicle can be modded up to the amount of pollutants of the 6cyl Studebaker.
But every 8 cyl F-Body will register as a polluter. Now even if they have someone compare the pic with the readout how do they know if the f body is a 6, 305 LG4. 305 TPI or 350 TPI is it a stick or automatic. I know they will not take the time to run the license plate and xcheck the vin vs the pollutant std for that vehicle, as that is more work for them then what is done now.
And big rig traffic is expected to double over the nest 5 years.

 

Clean Air in SoCal has always and will continue to be about money. Starting in about 82 when they first started authorizing smog stations, the initial meetings were about how much profit an independent shop could generate by going with the program. Sadly our shop fell for hype. Spen $20K for the Allen Scope testing machine, and the promise was that the testing standard would be frozen for 5 years, so you wouldn't have to change machines, annually. LOL, needless to say it was a pack of lies, and in a little over one year the testing machine standards were changed. Only $3K to update, 20 years ago $3K was a signifigant amount. It was interesting in that the machine had to have a phone line to call home to Sacramento when ever you wanted to test, or pretest a car. It was the first of the big brother data gathering scams.

The carrot in all this is Federal Highway funds. The Feds keep threatening to withhold the highway funds to get blind obedience from the states, so far the states haven't figured out they waste more money then the feds give. Typical knee jerk logic.

Smog has been a problem in LA since the beginning of time. With the inversion layer, it's just a fact of life, now instead of conifers generating the smog the CO2 in the system is from cars. If Ca wanted to make a difference, they'd outlaw A/C and drive thru's, LOL, fat chance of that happening.

Now that CARB has a track record the greenies, they're out to drive all the businesses they can out of SoCal. Should be interesting as the years progress.

Popular Mechanics had an interesting article in the mid to late 50's where they explored the idea of 3 large Nukes being used to blow a hole thru the foothills to allow enough air movement to the desert, to prevent the inversion layer from forming.

It's easy enough to filter out background and ambient levels to get accurate tests. Trouble is they want to test areas that aren't in the original testing protocols that cars meet to be EPA and CARB compliant. So in effect the powers to be get to be the powers to be.

As long as laws are passed because they feel good there will be dumb laws.

The drive by Emission Sampling is going still on going the last I heard, that is on the federal level with the EPA. They're JUST gathering data. I imagine that as time passes the places that don't have the infrastructure to support what Cali has for testing will go with the drive by stuff.

Once Lions, RIR, and OCIR, closed, there was little left in SoCal that I saw worth saving. Oh wait, they still have Carldbad don't they?, OK, save SD.....

 

yea, yeah.....

more....

I can't wait to get in line .....

This crap is made by a bunch of scientists that are paid to generate and push ideas/inovations without regard to whether it will actually work or not. I deal with this type of crap on occasion when people push their crap all the way to the end until those that know better ask the right questions and therefor expose the critical and tactical weakness of said product.

 

Good quotes James.

No way I'd hand the keys over to some yahoo so he can drive my car around a test track. It also seems there could be a liability issue. What if by chance the test driver damages a car?

Also, how is driving a car around a test rack any better than hooking it up on a dyno and testing it in a garage? The quote James pulled even indicates that wet weather could affect test readings and that efforts would need to be taken to keep the pavement dry.

The only part I like is that it seems that an underhood inspection would no longer be required unless the vehicle seriously failed the test. That's how it should be now.

 

It gets better than that Bret. The whole article is an @ss-clownery of stupid proportions and feel-good naturedness.


So we would have to drive out to BFE (or compton) and be forced let some minimum wage yahoo drive our cars over a course? I'd rather drop my car off at pep boys for an oil service & sunroof option.

 

Oh no doubt. Can't you just hear it - "I'm sorry sir, we're having trouble getting an accurate reading so we'll need to drive your car a few more times until we've had our fun - oops, I mean until we get a better reading." Not gonna happen.

 

you arent making sense you are just being reactionary, what exactly is your problem with the idea other than it is something new?

This is the furthest from feel good assclowenry, in fact im sure most environmentalists would loathe the idea of not being able to control the inputs of a system devised to lower pollution. Like ive stated before, the environmental movement has an obvious track record of pushing socialism using scare tactics and shoddy science.

Those parts of the policy analysis you quoted amount to minutia, not hard and fast rules the system must live by. What ifs and perhaps and coulds.

The basic thrust of the idea is to use remote sensing to make the system focus on the output and not the input which it does nicely. The details of which will always end up as a series of compromises and the authors are merely speculating what those compromises may be. It is clearly stated numerous times that the ideal vision concerning such a system would merely penalize the driver every time he popped a sensor and nothing more.

Eventually it would make more sense to invest in cleaner burning equipment than to just keep paying out the *** every time you pass by a sensor.

as for minimum wage yahoos, the guys testing your car now arent much more than minimum wage yahoos. Popping the hood and messing with your engine no less. Making judgments based on their interpretation of smog laws on whether you should pass or not


as for how the road side sniffer works, brett, the thing is not like the sniffer that goes up your tail pipe. It doesnt need to take a sample of air and then analyze it, it uses imagery using energy in the form of say a lazer to analyze what is in the air. Have you ever watched the news and wondered how they could tell water vapor around the world from sattelites along with temperatures, etc? I dont see doing it for a much smaller scale to present a problem as far as technology goes.

Having an announced smog test like the one we have now is pretty much pointless since the person knows its coming they can make adjustments to pass it and then re adjust so that the car ran as before. To make matters worse its only 1 time every two years, the other 700+ days the car can pollute all it wants so long as it has carb E.O. nubmers under the hood lol, pointless.

BlueThunder: A smoggy day doesnt even begin to approach what a smoggy car emits from its tail pipe. If it did there would be alot of dead people on smoggy days from carbon monoxide poisoning. I can probably use something as simple as thermal imagery to see all the **** a car pollutes on the whole (especially since NOx emissions are temp related) and be able to attribute that to whatever source its coming from (be it your thirdgen or the 82 celica behind you)

I cant help but think of the story of that engineer back in the 1950'S? that made serious arguments about the possibility of a drag car breaking 150 mph in the quarter.. "simply not possible!"
It seems like the biggest problem some have with the notion of road side sensors is the science behind it. Just because you may not grasp it does not make it impossible. Imagine telling WWII soldiers that it was possible to see at night using either visible light, temperature, or infrared? It would have blown their minds and you would have been laughed at. "Yah mean we can just run around in the dark!? hahah!"



Tom: You are right that every car type generates different types and amounts of pollution. But the current test doesnt account for this either so ... ??

 

btw it may seem like i just read one article on the net and got all nimbly bimbly over it (which would be an assumption on your part)
this is only one that I have shared with you that I found to be a good policy analysis. Ive been concerned about thsi stuff for years now and if you like I can point you in the direction of other good material to read concerning the subject.
The big one is the Skeptical Environmentalist (by bjorn lomborg) and alot of the writings by Julian Simon which are all on the net and basically analyze problems from environmental to overpopulation from an economic standpoint

I must point out that I am only an airplane mechanic high school graduate with a small and attrocious community college record so be sure to account for that when analyzing my opinions, I'm not that smart.

 

What did I quote or say that didn't make sense? Responding to the article is not reactionary. The idea is not new, it is just underdeveloped and impractical at this point.

The output they are trying to measure has too many variables that they cannot control. Their efforts to get around those variables (temp, humidity, calibration, load, driving habits, engine temp status) shows that as this point implimenting this technology isn't feasible without inducing error that will cause people a lot of inconvenience....the same inconvenience you are trying to avoid by not doing the dyno test. Nobody likes getting it done but at least the environment is consistant for each test.

Those parts that I quoted are what the geniuses at CATO seem to think are a great idea, minutia or not. They have to come up with some plausible workarounds for the inaccurate technology they are proposing. As I stated before, these people are paid good money to come up with ideas, develope them, come up with plausible workarounds when the tech falls shorts, and push to make their ideas turn into something. If they don't, they become irrelevant. It is someone else's responsibility to challege their ideas and determine or demonstrate the faults that make their ideas unfeasable or unpractical.


The basic premise of using sensors is a great idea, but at this time the technolgy is not accurate enough as madmax stated earlier in the thread. Much of the text in the body of the article are proposed solutions to the workaround in the failure of the tecnology. The other major part of the artcle is there to show how much money can be generated from the new technology and how to lesson the cost of enforcing the regulations. $$$

I agree. That is why my car is 100% smog legal. Is your car smog legal? What federal emission laws is your car currently violating?

No they aren't minimum wage yahoo's. They are lucrative business owners thanks to the test only station requirement most camaro owners are forced to take their cars to. Sure the tech is pretty dirty, but his M3 is pretty damn fine as is his little petite wife Since it is a test only station, he doesn't and can't tinker with my car. That would be unlawful.

It seems you and most of your friends are the ones violating the smog laws. I don't know anyone in our group who is in violation. In the article they talked about how people would try and fool the sensors (fake tailpipes, diluted exhaust, etc.) and how that would create and industry of workarounds. People will always try and cheat. Always.

As stated earlier smog (the crap in the air) is a fuction of emmisions and environment/weather. Thermal imagery shows heat, hence the word thermal. NOx is a function of combustion temp and mixture, not actual exhaust temp. Exhaust temp has too many variables to try and determine the mixure of it. Thermal imagery and spectral analysis are two different things. You can use spectral analysis to determine the composition of the exhasut but not the volume. That would have to be calculated from a steady state condition which cannot be garanteed in the real world driving environment conditions.

We never said t wasn't possible, just that it isn't quite there yet. Undoubtably they didn't go from 150 MPH to 300 MPH the next pass. They had to develop the aero to be able to do it. The tires to get it to stick. The power to get it there. The packaging of the engine to get it in a car and produce the power. There were many factors. They couldn't just stick a bigger engine in the cars and go 300 MPH otherwise thay would have done it.

The science to exclude the false positives is not there. Period. Night vision has been around since Vietnam and I believe since the 50's. It just wasn't common until they developed it to a point where it was reliable, benefitial, affordable and did what it was supposed to.

The current test measures percentages (% or PPM) and not volumes of exhaust components. A small engine can fail and produce lessor volumes of pollutants than a larger engine in a SUV that passes the percentages but produces 4X the amount of them.

 

Uh yeah Im well aware of "night vision" being around for quite some time. I wouldnt call a starlight scope very advanced though

I never claimed the idea was new either.


Btw thanks for letting me know that thermal imagery isnt capable of measuring pollutants (sarcasm) i mentioned it because something as simple as that can see something your eyes cant that cars emit (heat... where NOx comes from)



quote:
I agree. That is why my car is 100% smog legal. Is your car smog legal? What federal emission laws is your car currently violating?


your car is 100% smog legal because you dont want to pay out the *** every time you pass by a smog sensor? i thought they didnt exist?

and No my car is not federally smog legal. Ill bet if we nitpicked your car we'd probably find that yours wasnt either. Do you think yours would pass a federal smog test? Im violating lots of federal emissions laws because I have no incentive to follow them, as a matter of principle I vehemently disagree with socialism anyways (which is why I dont plan on staying in california). Even when I had to pass the test I would just rig the car to pass for the day of the test which is something 100000s of people do outside of your picket fenced neighborhoods. It would almost seem like the idea that millions of cars you drive by daily arent even registered probably shocks you.
The only goal is to get a peice of paper that allows you to register your car. After you have it who cares.


As for the tech not tinkering with your car.. if hes not hes not doing a full smog test. He needs to disconnect the hose to the EGR valve and build vacuum and look for a response from the engine aswell as seeing what your base timing is (est connector) he also needs to hook up to the aldl and check your prom ID etc

as for the current system using %, so do roadside sensors they measure as a percent of CO. I dont see why we dont include total volumes anyway because in effect the heavier your car is the more you are allowed to pollute. Mine only weighs 3000 lbs and has no AC whats yours weigh?


" It just wasn't common until they developed it to a point where it was reliable, benefitial, affordable and did what it was supposed to."

Damn what were those silly bastards thinking, they needed folks like yourself to tell them to think inside the box
crazy night vision took the sport out of war like those bumpers they put for kids at the bowling alley.