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In Germany, we did exactly what you suggest and banned all the old and badly tuned cars in the inner cities, with significant success ("Umweltplakette"). Edit:

• knz 10y ago
  Unfortunately (in this case) the US seems to have a much greater sense of individual right rather than collective right. My right, and that of my family, friends, and community, to clean and pollution free air seems to be less important than someone else's individual right to drive the vehicle of their choosing and maintain it as their means allow. I know some States have emissions testing etc but that is not universal across the US. I assume the assumption has always been that the market will slowly correct the issue and the fleet will change accordingly. But CAFE laws are of course a politicized issue.
  • Klathmon 10y ago
    IIRC emissions testing is similar to building codes in that you are only tested against the year the car was manufactured in most cases. So a 1970 car will still pollute as much as a 1970 car.
    • gozur88 10y ago
      >IIRC emissions testing is similar to building codes in that you are only tested against the year the car was manufactured in most cases. As I understand it older cars have higher allowable emissions, but the state has lowered those limits over the years. >So a 1970 car will still pollute as much as a 1970 car. In CA you are not required to get emissions testing for any car older than the 1975 model year. It used to be any car older than 30 years, but in 2005 they decided to leave it at 1975. To the larger point, yes, older cars can be registered with emissions levels consistant with a well-maintained car from that year. Though the net effect of the rules is to take more older cars off the road, since much of the time when you fail emissions testing it's cheaper to replace the car than to fix it.
  • mjevans 10y ago
    Part of that has to do with systemic defects in (our) culture in the US. * We don't have /good/, /usable/, public transit that can replace vehicle use (outside of some high-density urban cores). * We don't encourage sufficient building of housing /near jobs/ to reduce the need for commuting long distances. * We don't encourage the building of family capacity housing in those same areas. (Again, to increase competition, decrease rent and increase more civilly minded communities in those areas.) * The tax code and civic involvement that exist favor NIMBY, instead of targeting the future potential of an area (a corrective tax would be based on the /potential value/ of given land and what could be built on it, rather than it's current use).
• kogepathic 10y ago
  > banned all the old and badly tuned cars in the inner cities, with significant success Too bad a recent study found that diesel cars (PKW) are much more polluting than previously thought (article in German). [0] They're even worse for emissions than modern trucks (LKW), at least in Europe. We traded a very well known pollution source (old and/or badly tuned cars) for a new and previously unknown pollution source (diesel cars). I do honestly think this is the beginning of the end for diesel cars. VW scandal aside, they're just more harmful than previously thought. For me personally I'm excited for electric cars to reduce noise pollution in the city. You don't realize how loud normal cars are until you've ridden in an electric car, like a Tesla. It's night and day. [0] http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/diesel-pkw-stossen-teils-mehr-stickoxide-aus-als-lkw-a-1128839.html http://www.spiegel.de/auto/aktuell/diesel-pkw-stossen-teils-...
  • Freak_NL 10y ago
    Nitpick: PKW (Personenkraftwagen) does not mean Diesel car; it's any street legal car capable of transporting up to nine people under its own power (regardless of power source).
    • kogepathic 10y ago
      Sorry this was unclear. I meant PKW as a car, not specifically a diesel car.