Cruising Will Never be the Same

[fronobulax]

Oh yeah, re on-road testing: I did see something to that effect going on Southern CA recently, one method involved pull-overs with driver consent to test, a pass gave 'em a next-test exemption (saves money). Seems I saw something about polarized chromatic reading of the exhaust gases by video as well? Which allowed the "drive-by" testing.

RAPIDPASS Virginia

RAPIDPASS Virginia is the optional on-road vehicle emissions inspection program in Northern Virginia.

rapidpassvirginia.com

Feel free to read all about it. You'll probably be more informed than the typical Virginian

The emissions requirement pre-dates OBD-II so the regulatory basis probably does not take advantage of it.

My memory is fading and my search fu is tired but my recollection is that the requirement was imposed by the EPA in order to reduce air pollution in a multi-state region. It appears to have worked because the air is visibly clearer decades later. The debate seems to be whether it is still necessary

 

[Wilmywood]

Once I got SiriusXM I never listened to terrestrial radio again, going on 15 years now. My car and work van have it, my Jeep I use the app with an aux input into the radio.

 

[JohnW63]

A built in radio with preset channels is a lot more convenient and I would propose, safer. All the screens you have to go to in a connected phone ( OS and then in the App ) or menus and changes in satellite radios makes you take longer to find what you want which is less eye on the road time. ( This is where someone jumps in and says it's all voice activated now. )

 

[GAD]

Once I got SiriusXM I never listened to terrestrial radio again, going on 15 years now. My car and work van have it, my Jeep I use the app with an aux input into the radio.

I got SiriusXM free with my car. Around here it's borderline useless because every time I'd drive under tree cover the signal would cut out. We have a lot of tree cover. On long trips on the Interstate it was cool, but it drove me nuts driving locally.

 

[Wilmywood]

I got SiriusXM free with my car. Around here it's borderline useless because every time I'd drive under tree cover the signal would cut out. We have a lot of tree cover. On long trips on the Interstate it was cool, but it drove me nuts driving locally.

Try using the phone app with bluetooth through the car radio. It is not as affected by tree cover as the straight satellite signal is, it works as well as the phone reception does.

 

[walrus]

The used to probe the tailpipes here, too. Inspection in NJ used to be an awful process. You’d wait in line for hours and then it would take 45 minutes for them to inspect every little stupid thing. Now it’s the scanner, maybe check if your lights work and you’re outta there. It’s glorious compared to the old ways. Plus now we only inspect every two years. A brand new car is four years.

This is what I need - a new car only inspected every 4 years, then every 2! Yes!

And I'm still waiting around 40 minutes as well. No wonder everyone is moving to NJ!

walrus

 

[RBSinTo]

If they ever do away with AM radio oldies stations, I'll just keep a refrigerator carton of CD's I like in my Subaru.
I refuse to listen to the dreck that has passed for music since the Beatles broke up.
RBSinTo

 

[walrus]

If they ever do away with AM radio oldies stations, I'll just keep a refrigerator carton of CD's I like in my Subaru.
I refuse to listen to the dreck that has passed for music since the Beatles broke up.
RBSinTo

Precisely why I love my Subaru's 6-CD changer!

walrus

 

[dwasifar]

Once I got SiriusXM I never listened to terrestrial radio again, going on 15 years now. My car and work van have it, my Jeep I use the app with an aux input into the radio.

I subscribed to one of them before they merged, don't remember whether it was Sirius or XM. They got regulatory approval to merge by promising they wouldn't raise their subscription rates, then shortly after the merger, added "content fees" that you couldn't opt out of, thereby raising their rates in practice while avoiding breaking their regulatory conditions. To keep a decent rate you have to call and threaten to cancel every year. They promised no commercials forever, then started adding commercials to some stations and claiming no commercials on music stations. Then it was no commercials on most music stations. And the commercials were cheese and sleaze, and played loud.

I finally got tired of all the sneakiness and the gotchas and ditched them.

If they ever do away with AM radio oldies stations, I'll just keep a refrigerator carton of CD's I like in my Subaru.
I refuse to listen to the dreck that has passed for music since the Beatles broke up.

Precisely why I love my Subaru's 6-CD changer!

My Subaru has a USB port and Android Auto. I can stream my personal library from my phone through Emby, but most often I use flash drives. I wrote a program to select and write 500 random tracks from my collection to a flash drive. It adjusts the metadata to get around the Subaru head unit's brain dead sorting algorithm.

 

[Wilmywood]

I subscribed to one of them before they merged, don't remember whether it was Sirius or XM. They got regulatory approval to merge by promising they wouldn't raise their subscription rates, then shortly after the merger, added "content fees" that you couldn't opt out of, thereby raising their rates in practice while avoiding breaking their regulatory conditions. To keep a decent rate you have to call and threaten to cancel every year. They promised no commercials forever, then started adding commercials to some stations and claiming no commercials on music stations. Then it was no commercials on most music stations. And the commercials were cheese and sleaze, and played loud.

I finally got tired of all the sneakiness and the gotchas and ditched them.





My Subaru has a USB port and Android Auto. I can stream my personal library from my phone through Emby, but most often I use flash drives. I wrote a program to select and write 500 random tracks from my collection to a flash drive. It adjusts the metadata to get around the Subaru head unit's brain dead sorting algorithm.

I listen more to talk radio than music on it, and I travel a lot for work, so it's almost a necessity. I have never noticed any 'cheese and sleaze'.