The Federal gov in the US has a “road legal” standard for commercial motor vehicles like trucks and buses. The feds also have minimum rules for headlights, brake lights and turn signals on passenger cars.
Everything else in terms of road legality is a state law in each of the 50 states.
The reason is the Constitution gives the feds power to regulate interstate commerce (i.e. big commercial vehicles that frequently cross state lines). The feds do not have the general “police power” that states have to pass laws on whatever.
We’re basically at least 50 different countries. It depends on which sub-country you’re in to know how strict the regulations are. However, what is illegal on paper is very different from what is often enforced.
Yeah. For some things it makes sense to look at the US as kind of rural/redneck Europe. The US has like half the population but pretty much all of the geographic diversity.
Consider, for instance, my state of Pennsylvania. It might be a big enough state that folks in civilized countries have heard of it. Being a swing state in our presidential elections probably helps too.
The thing is, this little state you may not have heard of is significantly bigger than countries like Seweden or Belgium, in both population and GDP. It’s between the two as far as land area.
PA is shaped a bit like the US itself, too. You have Pittsburgh in the west “coast” and Philadelphia to the east. It’s a 515 km drive between the two, or if you want to avoid tolls it’s more like 565km at much slower speeds. The vast stretch of land in between is beautiful in places but is very correctly referred to as Pennsyltucky.
When it comes to driving laws, I don’t go to the united states drivers services or whatever, I go to PennDOT! https://www.pa.gov/penndot
Is there even a notion of “road legal” in the US ? It seems that just anything goes over there.
The Federal gov in the US has a “road legal” standard for commercial motor vehicles like trucks and buses. The feds also have minimum rules for headlights, brake lights and turn signals on passenger cars.
Everything else in terms of road legality is a state law in each of the 50 states.
The reason is the Constitution gives the feds power to regulate interstate commerce (i.e. big commercial vehicles that frequently cross state lines). The feds do not have the general “police power” that states have to pass laws on whatever.
Seems, as long it’s not a cheap Asian car with good mileage, it’s road legal.
We’re basically at least 50 different countries. It depends on which sub-country you’re in to know how strict the regulations are. However, what is illegal on paper is very different from what is often enforced.
Yeah. For some things it makes sense to look at the US as kind of rural/redneck Europe. The US has like half the population but pretty much all of the geographic diversity.
Consider, for instance, my state of Pennsylvania. It might be a big enough state that folks in civilized countries have heard of it. Being a swing state in our presidential elections probably helps too.
The thing is, this little state you may not have heard of is significantly bigger than countries like Seweden or Belgium, in both population and GDP. It’s between the two as far as land area.
PA is shaped a bit like the US itself, too. You have Pittsburgh in the west “coast” and Philadelphia to the east. It’s a 515 km drive between the two, or if you want to avoid tolls it’s more like 565km at much slower speeds. The vast stretch of land in between is beautiful in places but is very correctly referred to as Pennsyltucky.
When it comes to driving laws, I don’t go to the united states drivers services or whatever, I go to PennDOT! https://www.pa.gov/penndot