[robocat]

> Done right, it can be low burden and low cost

The rules mostly penalise the poor (and often unfairly).

You are severely underestimating how hard "done right" is.

I'm from New Zealand and the yearly car checkup is burdensome. About $75 and an hour wasted minimum to get car checked.

However the workshop profits come from fixing faults so their economic incentive is to find faults.

It costs you way more time if something needs fixing (parts delays, getting car and from workshop, etc.)

Our warrant of fitness regulations are ostensibly for safety (yours and others). However the jobsworth wonks have zero incentive to balance the risks versus the costs. The rules get stricter every year for goals that have no measurable outcome.

Many of the safety regulations are sensible, but many are just bullshit.

[solraph]

From memory (I haven't lived in NZ for a while now), the WoF check could be done at VTNZ stations, which explicitly did not do repairs to avoid this conflict of interest.

Alas, it looks like VTNZ was privatised and the exact outcome you would expect happened.

[robocat]

You imply that privatisation is the cause.

But really I think the government incentives are the root cause.

Fortunately I can still find workshops that care about doing a good job (more than they care about ripping off customers). But I feel bad for anyone who can't pick good services: which takes skill and costs time.

I never used VTNZ because I found them to be overly picky when I tried them. I thought VTNZ followed the rules too strictly and you didn't get any fair relaxation. I didn't know the history you have mentioned.

[traderj0e]

New Zealand sounds unreasonable. It's reasonable in like California. They don't mandate yearly checkups, just smog testing which is every 2 years for cars older than 8 years.