If you want to do something about this, given that we have universal surveillance of license plates anyway:

Demand that your local government installs PM 2.5 / 10 monitors on each of their spy cams. They'll easily pick up out-of-spec emissions systems. Join the emissions spikes with the license plates. Take the cars that are two standard deviations above the norm for PM 2.5 / 10 increases after they're spotted by the camera, and have them come in for an aggressive smog check.

Completely eliminate all other smog check requirements for late model cars because modern tests are just "check the pollution control light on the dash", and "check for tampering". Those checks will only catch honest drivers, since coal-rollers limit themselves to reversible modifications anyway.

If we're going to give up our privacy for some amorphous benefits (which I think is a terrible tradeoff), at least let those benefits include annual paperwork. As a bonus, if the PM 2.5 / 10 data is made public, then we'd have much better air pollution monitoring. There's no way this plan costs more than the current system, where every ICE car driver pays ~ $100 to an inspection station every few years. PM sensors are under $100, and you need orders of magnitude fewer sensors than cars.

I watched a pickup roll coal in the middle of freaking East Bay, literally within site of downtown San Francisco, on a bicyclist. I reported their license to the California Air Resources Board, and not longer after that I saw it up on jacks in a neighborhood auto shop. That made my day. Asshole.

For those, like me, who aren't familiar with the term "rolling coal": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_coal

> Hell, I've seen a truck roll coal around cop cars and, obviously, nothing happened.

> This is just gross privacy intrusion masquerading as "protecting the environment".

You're conflating two entirely different groups of people working for two different governments with entirely different motivations. It is entirely possible that the cops in the situation you observed didn't have any issue because they didn't think they were breaking any law they enforce. Your local police and EPA Special Agents have different jobs.

The Clean Air Act is a federal law. There are 10 states with laws directly targeting "rolling coal".

I was on a bike ride with my young kid. We were going up a hill and being passed by a lifted diesel truck. I could tell that the driver was desperately working the throttle to avoid accidentally blowing smoke in my kids' face.

Congratulations, buddy. You've designed your life around being such a massive unlikeable asshole to random strangers. But for a brief moment you understood shame.

I'm generally pretty libertarian, but I'm all for throwing the book at these guys.

The only masquerading is some basic OBD functions slapped onto an app that is entirely designed for the sole purpose of installing emissions evasion firmware. Most of the reviews brag about it, even.

And do you really think they're HQ'd in the caymans by coincidence? No. It's to avoid any repercussions.

You can get similar basic OBD functions from any of a dozen free apps on iOS or Android that do that all far better and for a few dollars.

FFS they even sell another app for editing (ie falsifying) electronic driver logs.

They are probably owned by off duty police

With this admin any comment on “protecting the environment” is an obvious lie when they state that climate change doesn’t exist and are opening up every national land then can to resource extraction.

Like it’s normally a dubious claim when trying to violate privacy but for them it’s fucking laughable if only it wasn’t so ominous.