Posted on 10/19/2015 2:48:31 PM PDT by Cowman
If you live in one of the more than 20 states where Opus Inspection, through its subsidiary Envirotest, operates emissions testing programs, you may have seen its “RapidScreen” trucks and, more lately, unmanned stations set up beside the road, scanning the tailpipe emissions of passing vehicles.
You may even live in a state where receiving a clean bill of health from one of these trucks a couple of times a year can exempt you from having to present yourself and your car for an emissions test at registration time (though you still have to pay the inspection fee, naturally).
The system works by waiting for a car to flash past, when, in the space of milliseconds, the vehicle’s speed is measured (twice, to determine whether the car is accelerating, decelerating, or neither) and beams of infrared and ultraviolet light are shot across the road and reflected back through its exhaust wake. Particular frequencies of the light are absorbed by various pollutants, including carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide (CO2), oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and particulates.
When those frequencies of light don’t register back at the receiver at the proper levels, the system knows the passing car is emitting more of one or more of the pollutants than it should. (This is called spectroscopy, and it’s the same way drive-in emission tests are performed, except in those places the exhaust is collected by a tailpipe sniffer and the light is shot through it inside a box.) Finally, a snapshot is taken of the back end of the car, attaching the scan results to the vehicle’s license plate number.
(Excerpt) Read more at jalopnik.com ...
Driving is a privilege after all.
So is travel.
You’re papers please.
Seems like all of their competitor’s would have bought some, trying to figure out how they did it.
If I ever see their truck, I’ll shut off the motor and coast by.
I have a TDI and it gets 40-43 mpg. It also performs like a speed demon. I’m happy with the car. My Suburban meets all its pollution requirements, but it gets from 12-16 mpg. It seems unlikely that the VW pollutes more than the Suburban. Something is wrong with the regulations.
“If I ever see their truck, I’ll shut off the motor and coast by.”
I may design an air scoop to add air to the exhaust. That should do it.
Your car is emitting on a public roadway, the fumes that come out of it are open to collection. Just like having pot smell coming out of the window.
I’ve got plenty of dog poop in my back yard. I wonder what spectroscopy would make of burning dog poop.
OK So if that's the case then why do I still have to get sniffed annually and pay the state fee? It seems to me this is just another way of getting into my pocket and using the force of law to do so
It is. But it’s the rules. And there’s no guarantee you’d be sniffed at random on the roadway. Of course if you live in the right place and have the right car you’d only get sniffed every other year. Live in an even MORE right place and you don’t have to get sniffed at all.
I’d just like to see what that thing would do if a 68 Pete with a 12V71 blew by
I ran Import Auto Service in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Indiana for many years...before this situation, but I guarantee that I would have found it...could I have cured the customers problems.....maybe, probably not. However, the customer would have been advised of my findings.....the cars got great mileage, just spewed a little too much meaningless carbon...
Hmmmm. Inject propane into the exhaust tip, a spark plug and an ignition coil and a capacitor and resistor to cycle the coil, and a switch...
Wonder how fire proof their little sensor is?
Actually I am waiting for the day when I have my little CO/ combustible gas detector and walk over and test the exhaust coming out of the generator that runs their equipment. I am sure it comes out absolutely pure oxygen instead of the 700ppm CO like all the other little generators.
OK. Why would a counter-measure not include placing a light bar on the back of your vehicle that emits in whatever frequency spectrum they are monitoring? No different than a jammer operating on any other freq-not a big deal.
Actually, my in your face fantasy is to set up a sniffer station at one of the save the earth bike rides they keep having here and force the participants to --ahem-- get tested before they can use the public roads.
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