For 15 years, Steve Braithwaite has driven a 23-foot banana across the country and, on Wednesday, just like hundreds of times before, he was pulled over…
For 15 years, Steve Braithwaite has driven a 23-foot banana across the country and, on Wednesday, just like hundreds of times before, he was pulled over…
I appreciate the puns in this thread but on a serious note most states have a process to inspect and approve hobby cars for road-worthiness. That’s the one question not answered in the article: is the vehicle actually legal to be driving on the road?
Road worthiness is more about having appropriate lights, horn, seatbelts and mirrors. Engine efficiency is a big part of being road legal so as long as he didn’t alter or remove emissions equipment that will be fine. Depending on what state he lives in he might need a safety inspection but that’s definitely not even close to universal. Lastly he’d need the right paperwork like a title, registration as a hobby car, liability insurance and get the correct license plates.
If you build your own car your safety as a driver or passenger is generally not the concern of the government just that you follow the rules and make sure other drivers can see you and you can see them. Americans have completely free travel between states so there’d be no way to prevent him from traveling around and it likely would be very illegal to try to stop him if he did meet all the requirements listed.
I love that we can build a car from the ground up, as long as it meets a bare minimum safety standard…
Yet somehow we can’t have the right to repair certain vehicles due to “safety” (aka intellectual property law and rent seeking)