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birchyboy
Thu Dec 31st, 2015, 03:31 PM
I find it odd that Colorado doesn't have any sort of safety inspection for cars/trucks/motorcycles. Coming from Maine, there was an annual inspection where they focused primarily on safety items. If your car was missing lights, body panels, had bad brakes, rust through the frame, etc, it couldn't be driven. Around here, all that matters is smog. I get that people sometimes don't have lots of money, or if they do they can choose to spend it on other things. But isn't having a hood on a car and windows required by state law?

There is a lady that lives next to me that has two different vehicles that she uses. She never has both of them at our complex, but both are in dire straights. One of her cars is a '90ish Kia Sportage that has a missing headlight, a missing window and a crescent wrench attached to a cable for opening the rear hatch. Not a set of locking pliers, just a crescent wrench that is somehow hanging onto a nut. Her other car is a relatively new Nissan Sentra, mid 2000's, with a missing hood and a headlight hanging off the front.

I like my place, but every time I walk out and see her car I want to offer to get a hood installed.

teamextreme
Thu Dec 31st, 2015, 05:15 PM
No we don't, thank god, and for good reason. The number of accidents caused by vehicle defects so infinitesimally small the money, hassle and further government intrusion is not worth it. Emissions inspections are bad enough and are a joke themselves, but that's topic enough for another thread. And to answer your question, no, hoods and windows are not required equipment under CO law. Jeeps don't have doors and therefore not windows. You don't have windows when you roll them down. Hot rods often don't have hoods. Obviously this woman is the glaring exception as to why people often think an inspection is a good thing, but to have millions of us subjected to them just to catch a handful of people like her isn't worth it, IMO. Headlights are required, however, and she'll eventually get pulled over for that and given a ticket.

longrider
Thu Dec 31st, 2015, 07:53 PM
Sometimes there is an advantage to being a FOG... :) We had safety inspections up until the early to mid 80s and they were repealed by popular demand due to the ineffectiveness plus many people who did not know cars/bikes were being scammed by unscrupulous inspectors for repairs they did not need. I was a licensed motorcycle inspector and the some of the rules were just crazy. The best one was that turn signals had to work but motorcycles were not required to have turn signals. So if you broke one off you had two options - replace the broken one or take the other three off