SEMA Continues To Fight For Pro-Hobbiest Laws As Legislators Adjourn

Images: The SEMA Action Network on flickr

Now that legislatures in most of the 50 states are adjourned for the year, it’s time to play catch-up on several issues the Specialty Equipment Market Association has been keeping a watchful eye on for the last year, making sure your hot rod hobby isn’t in danger. Check out this month’s SEMA Law & Order update below!

Kicking off our Law & Order update this month are all of the pro-hobbiest laws that have recently been passed into law or sent to their state governor’s desk for a signature. These bills-turned-laws include Colorado’s law that repealed the six-year limitation on applying a salvage title to “totaled” vehicles.

While this may not seem very pro-hobby, with SEMA’s help, an amendment was made to the bill before it was signed into law by Governor John Hickenlooper that exempts all vehicles deemed collectors items, horseless carriages, or street rods at the time of the salvage assessment from a salvage brand being attached to it. This will prevent current collectible vehicles and street rods from being branded a salvage vehicle and possibly blemishing the vehicle’s titling process or reputation if it is sold in the future.

Another law that rodders can get excited about being signed is a law from Delaware that exempts all reconstructed vehicles (defined as vehicles constructed of essential parts sourced from a variety of makes and models, or an originally constructed vehicle that has been materially altered through the addition or subtraction of essential parts) that are 25 years or older from emissions testing. These vehicles will remain exempt from emissions testing as long as they continue to meet safety and anti-tampering requirements for the vehicle’s model year.

More of New Hampshire’s classic car owners will be able to obtain and use year-of-manufacture plates on their vehicles thanks to a bill being signed into law. This new updated law will allow the use of year-of-manufacture plates on vehicles from 1975 or earlier now rather than the past standard of vehicles from 1960 and earlier.

In Minnesota, Governor Mark Dayton recently signed a bill into law that will provide a program for the status of all classic cars to be determined by national standards versus a time-consuming amendment that was used to designate a vehicle’s status in the state in the past.

Also in Minnesota, a law has been signed that will make the selling, distributing, and installing of wheel weights that contain lead or mercury illegal starting January 1, 2016. This law will also require proper disposal of all lead or mercury-based wheel weights removed from vehicles. Several other states have similar laws, including New York, California, and Washington, which aim to cut down on potential environmental issues associated with lead or mercury-based wheel weights falling off and any released particles from entering the soil or ground water.

Finally, both Louisiana and Nova Scotia have made proclamations pertaining to SEMA’s annual Collector Car Appreciation Day. Because of these proclamations, the second weekend in July will be known in Louisiana as Louisiana Collector Car Appreciation Weekend, and the whole month of July 2014 was considered Automotive Heritage Month in Nova Scotia.

While several bills were passed into law, a number of them died when legislatures all over the country adjourned for the year. These included the SEMA-opposed bill out of Hawaii that would have required inspection stations to be set up to test all vehicle exhaust systems for noise levels above those emitted by factory exhaust systems, as well as a similar bill out of Vermont that would have banned exhaust systems on all vehicles that increased the noise level (no matter how much) from normal factory noise emissions.

Good news also comes out of Minnesota on the dead bill front, where legislature adjournment killed the bill aiming to tax drivers based on the numbers of miles they drove their vehicles.

While the summer is winding down, so too are legislatures all over the country. But that doesn’t mean that the potential of new bills aiming to put limitations on the hot rod industry aren’t in our future. Be sure to stay tuned for more SEMA Law & Order updates and sign up to become part of the free SEMA Action Network (SAN) to show your support for keeping this hobby as uninhibited and enjoyable as possible.

About the author

Lindsey Fisher

Lindsey is a freelance writer and lover of anything with a rumble. Hot rods, muscle cars, motorcycles - she's owned and driven it all. When she's not busy writing about them, she's out in her garage wrenching away. Who doesn't love a tech-savy gal that knows her way around a garage?
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