I just got the following email regarding a proposed Illinois law to eliminate inoperable hobbyist vehicles on private property. Might be of interest to any of you from Illinois.
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Illinois Reintroduces Bill to Further Restrict Inoperable
Collector Vehicles
A bill (H.B. 25) has been reintroduced in Illinois by State Representative Dan Brady (dan@rep-danbrady.com) that would further restrict the ability of Illinois vehicle hobbyists from maintaining inoperable vehicles on private property. The bill removes historic vehicles over 25-years of age from a list of vehicles exempt from county inoperable vehicle ordinances if they are not kept within a building. Under current law, a county board may declare all inoperable vehicles a nuisance and order their disposal. This bill, if enacted, would subject your ungaraged historic hobby cars to disposal and possible fines.
We Urge You to Your State Legislators Immediately
To Request Their Opposition to H.B. 25
* H.B. 25 would give local authorities an inordinate amount of power in determining the disposition of historic project cars.
* H.B. 25 would make it virtually impossible for Illinois hobbyists to maintain inoperable collector vehicles on private property.
* H.B. 25 demonstrates a lack of understanding of the vehicle hobby and the rights of hobbyists.
Contact your State Legislators in Springfield immediately by phone, fax or e-mail in opposition to H.B. 25. Bill sponsor Rep. Dan Brady can be reached at dan@rep-danbrady.com. This bill tramples on the rights of vehicle enthusiasts and collectors in Illinois. If you need assistance in determining who your legislators are and their contact information, please contact the Illinois Legislature’s General Information Line at 217/782-2000. This information can also be obtained by calling the SEMA Washington, D.C. office at 202/783-6007, ext. 38 or via the Internet at http://www.semasan.com/ContactYourLegislator.aspx
Please e-mail a copy of your letter to stevem@sema.org, fax to 202/783-6024 or mail to:
I can and cannot see their point. Around here (in town) we have so many cars sitting around with weeds growing in them, junk on top of them, junk in them, and just plain lazy people that are too lazy to junk them or give them away because they might have to get a pen and sign the title over or just may have to put forth an effort to answer the door and they say "Oh yea...that's a classic and I'm gonna restore that someday". It brings down property values. I am a hobbyist. I want my property to look nice and I consider the neighbors whenever I do anything to my property. The last thing I want to do is bring down their property value and mine to. But we have people around that only think of themselves and start dragging cars, trailers, and everything else in then next thing you know is you just lost about $30,000.00 of equity in your property. If it wasn't so blamed nasty out right now I would drive down the road and snap a pic of a prime example. I don't thin k these states are so much targeting the enthusiast but they are targeting the trash, inoperable vehicles in general. And to do that they have to put some kind of restrictions on them. Just drive around anywhere and look at how neighborhoods have went down, and look at the reason why. I bet in any one you can find at least a half a dozen cars in a six square block area that have been sitting for more than a year. Just by asking the people to do something with them does no good so a law has to be enacted to do something about it. To me my property is money in the bank. I worked hard to get what I have and I sure don't want someone moving in next door that is going to take that away from me. So yes, in my opinion, it does have it's good points. Either hide it from public view by a privacy fence, garage, or other means, or get it running, or just get rid of it. And that's $.02 outta my pocket!!!!!
I agree with the law. The last thing i want to see is someones project car sitting in their yard. If you dont have a garage, put the money towards building one before you buy a project. If you have a garage and its full, dont buy another project.
we had this law for years, as long as the car is intact(on tires with all doors,windows etc in place)nothing is said, if the car is "apart" it must be wrapped in a tarp or something similar.
the law is so they can make the pigs clean their yard, not to rob you of a pastime.
Around here your allowed one unlicensed vehicle. The rest have to have plates weather they run or not. Of course if they have plates they also have to have insurance. State law. But you know how that works, too. Only those that obey the law have to follow it. The rest gets away with it.
I dont like the sound of that. I was not aware of the bill until now and am not sure of the specifics, but I don't really appreciate anyone having say in my own property. We live outside town about an 1/8 of a mile, and have all kinds of "stuff" laying around. Here, the people that would recieve the authority do not appreciate values of other people. A couple years ago, there was a Monte SS, next town down the road impounded for not having license. The car ran and drove, but the owner had recently had back surgery. When he got it back, it had been stripped, so he took the hood and painted "This eyesore brought to you by the Village of Plymouth".
It doesn't sound too bad for just crap laying around town, but I'll do with my stuff what I want.
I would be almost certain there are already laws on the books to deal with people who have junked out cars on their property. The laws need to be enforced, not more of them made. This is suppose to be a free country not a Communist State. I agree that people need to be responsible and keep their places descent looking. This is just some bill, being proposed by some politician, who is having his palms greased by big business or special intrest groups. I doubt very seriously if it is really about keeping places cleaned up of old cars. It probably is more about having old cars crushed so people have to buy new ones, or big business getting pollution credit with the EPA for having them crushed.
What the hell? How could communism and socialism be brought into something like this? This is a simple matter of having common courtesy of those surrounding you. No one wants to look at a car without wheels or doors or whatever in your yard, and on top of that it brings down your neigbors property value. If i am looking at a house for sale and a neighbor of that house has a car in the yard on cinder blocks with a tarp over it, Im not going to buy that house. Some scumbags dont have common courtesy to keep their property clean and respectable for their neighbors and other people that have to look at their crap, so a law must be made or threatened to get them to clean up their crap. And i see this from more of a neighborhood standpoint. If you live in the country with 8 acres and your "project" is sitting in the yard behind your house where no one can see, by all means let the crap pile up!
The point is, their are current laws out there that need to be enforced. There does not need to be more laws and control put into the hands of the government. I fully believe in freedom and giving up rights leads to Totalitarism and Socialism. If you give a little bit away, eventually you will have no rights, it is like a snowball rolling out of control down a hill. I also said I don't think people should be pigs either. If you look into your local laws and ordinances, their will already be laws dealing with such people. Homeowners associations can also help deal with people who refuse to clean up their places. Why make more laws when there are alternative methods, if there is a problem then get the current laws enforced, don't make new ones.
They proposed something like this last year in Georgia, but it didn't pass. I have two cars at my house and one at my grandma's house that don't run and aren't covered up. As for those that agree with this, well Ill give you my address so you can send a donation for my garage. I don't have the money or the capability to erect a garage or shelter. I do what I can with what I have. Itll be Illinois first, then others will follow. They can try it hear and Ill be sitting on top of my chevelle, shotgun in hand. A hotrodder is someone who loves to work on cars, that doesn't mean that they have to have a $$$$$ garage or building to hide their stuff in. Why does the government waste their time on something else say...I dont know....drugs or gangs or something.
It's also someone who has pride in what they have and not to be so arrogant that the negativity of it reflects onto the neighbors. I don't so much think the Illinois law or any other state for that matter is actually targeting the hobbyist, they are targeting the rusted, junked, polluting, and non-running vehicles that are becoming a total eyesore sitting around for years on end. Tag them, get them running, or if you can't afford to do anything with them, then get rid of them.
What about a parts car? With 2 kids and a 60 hour a week job things can get slowed down, if you know what I mean. I own and live on 3 acres over a quarter mile back a lane, but if I didn't I wouldn't want someone hauling off my projects. I agree that junk cars with grass growing around them, or the wheels settling into the ground should be taken care of.But where do you draw the line? That's the million dollar question.
Whatever happened to people having private property rights? Read what the constitution and decleration of independence have to say about the rights of people to do with their property as they see fit. Whatever happened to the idea of freedom?
Having so many laws about what people can do with their own stuff is a socialist/communist idea.
The first ammendment protects offensive speech. And yet because some uptight ****** is offended I might have to get rid of a car, that I find offensive.
I had this happen to me back where my parents live back in 2001. I keep most of my cars back there. Well I had an 81 Cutlass sitting in their driveway for about a year and a half or 2 years. A township cop stops and was getting out of the car and writing down my license plate number (expired of course) and my dad see's him. He goes out and asks him what he's doing. Well the cop tells him about the stupid law the township passed. After that, I got a letter in the mail from the township telling me that I had 30 days to either get plates on it or put it in a garage or remove it from the property. Now the car didn't look like junk. I had replaced the front clip so it was 2 different colors, but was not a pile of junk. I had just rebuilt the trans and put it back in and was going to bring it here but it had sat so long the brake lines and fuel lines rusted. I started it up, went to go put it in gear and put my foot on the brake... blew a brake line. Then I saw fuel leaking from the rusted fuel line. I thought... too much trouble, I have enough "pokers in the fire right now" and I am not going to put plates on it and it's not going to go in the garage - so I got rid of it. It is sad that probably 4 old coots go to the township meetings or whatever and vote on this kind of crap. It's sad that some old "lookey loo" doesn't like seing the same car sitting in one spot and not moving. Those kind of people need to get a life and not sit in the front yard on their knees with a pair of scissors cutting the grass blade by blade.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think it is cool to have a pile of rusted junk sitting on the lawn with garbage in the car and sitting up on blocks, (along with a broken washer and dryer and Ronnie Cox playing dueling banjos with one of the locals ) but if it's not a huge eye sore, and it's on your property, what is the harm?
I understand property value and one houses effects on the surrounding houses. I also am testimony that just because you can't throw thousands into a vehicle or build a garage for it doesnt mean that youre not proud of your vehicle(s). I worked almost a year to save up the money I used to buy my chevelle. I work on it whenever I get the chance, usually 2-4 times a week. I have no garage and it sits out in plain sight. It has been doing so for several months and will continue to do so for several more. My car has no tag, and does not run but It'll be a cold day in the big sauna before the city hauls it off.
I understand property value and one houses effects on the surrounding houses. I also am testimony that just because you can't throw thousands into a vehicle or build a garage for it doesnt mean that youre not proud of your vehicle(s). I worked almost a year to save up the money I used to buy my chevelle. I work on it whenever I get the chance, usually 2-4 times a week. I have no garage and it sits out in plain sight. It has been doing so for several months and will continue to do so for several more. My car has no tag, and does not run but It'll be a cold day in the big sauna before the city hauls it off.
I'm pretty sure the people who actually own houses around could care less how "proud" you are of your car as long as it still doesn't run and looks like crap in their neighborhood. When I was 16 or so I bought a big dodge ramcharger and it sat out for a while when I had the motor out of it. Didn't have time or money to get the thing done in a quick fashion, so I had to bite the bullet one day and watch it get hauled off to a place out of town where a guylet me store it. Its reality, and we all have to deal with it.
The problem comes from "hobbyists" who buy some crappy old car and never seem to have the money, time or effort to actually do anything with it other than let it sit there like any other of their "I'll get to it some day" projects. Thing ends up sitting there and never gets anything done to it. If these people don't have the drive, money or ambition to do anything else with these cars than let them sit for years on end, maybe they shouldn't have let their sexy fantasies get the best of them in the first place, they give the rest of us who actually finish our projects a bad name (no disrespect to those of you with frame-offs and whatnot) Its no different than any of the other failed attempts that people make, like the weight bench that's more than likely sitting in the basement, unused for years. The guitar that sits in the corner that they'll learn to play someday, etc etc. That's all well and good, I guess, but its different when other people have to look at it. What if that old, ugly rusty weight bench was sitting in your front yard along with a bunch of other nick-nacks that you'll "get to" eventually? Why should people have to look at that just because you don't want to keep your property clean? How would you feel if you bought a nice house and took pride in it, kept it clean and painted, driveway coated, lawn cared for and mowed, vehicles washed, gutters cleaned etc etc, just to watch some jerk bring home some crappy old car and let it sit in his front lawn, driveway, yard or whatever for years on end? I don't even own property and I can tell you right now, if there was a number to be called, I'd call it. I hate to sound like a jerk, but if you don't have the resources to work on a project, don't get one in the first place. Its like centerline wrote, if you're going to get into a project, sit down and do some figuring, a timeline, a budget. Be realistic! So many guys look in the paper for a "cheap old car" to "re-do" and have the 700 dollars on hand and don't think about the fact that maybe a 700 dollar car needs 10,000 dollars worth of paint and work, whereas a 4000 dollar car maybe would only need a motor swap.
I really don't understand much of the justification of having a non operational vehicle sitting outside, especially here in michigan. If you don't have a place to store it, where in the hell do you expect to do all the work to this thing?! Especially here in the winter! I mean, i would love to buy some of these cars I see on Ebay, but it stands to reason that you have to stop and think for a bit about things like "where the hell am I going to put this thing, how am I going to get it complete in a reasonable amount of time and where do I put it!"
The day they pass a law stopping people from having weight benches, washers and dryers, or other nonused equipment out in their yard is the day Ill cover my car up. I know that I dont own property so I cant fully understand the situation from that perspective, and maybe may age and mentality wont enable me to see the real reasoning behind this proposal but what differentiates old "junked" cars from the rusted weight benches, or washers and dryers and lawn mowers. People just always seem to overlook those items but want to rant and rave when someone has an old, non-running car in their yard. I can see if the guy next to you is starting a local junkyard that it would be a little irritating but who are we to judge other peoples lifestyles?
This is an issue that should be handled in a manner specific to each individual.
I will say this. My first Caprice was told total bomb when I bought it 4 years ago. It sat in my driveway untagged, un-insured, with expired inspection for atleast a year. Progress was always being made, but it didn't look pretty. But I wasn't going to build a garage for it, you don't need a garage to make progress. Obviously, look at it now.
The white Caprice sat in my driveway for two years.
Like I said every situation is different, the way my property and trees are set up you really don't even see my cars unless you're driving past the front of my house stairing up my driveway. Which is why I never got a complaint from anyone. Now if the control freak, dick week, who likes to run the block association came over and complained about either of the cars at any point in their building, just so he could feel good enforcing the rule, I would probably tell him to blow me.
Uhh, I'm pretty sure having unused garbage on your lawn is illegal. THat's the reason I wrote that... correlation making more sense now?
Case by case? Maybe. Your cars look pretty normal, ghetto, but I'd have to admit that's borderline. Cars are meant no less to be trailer queens with no pistons in their engines than they are to be sitting non-functional in a driveway or yard for years. The point of many laws is that few exceptions can be made, and to be honest with you ghetto, 502, if your neighbors get (of got, in your case ghetto) the idea to call the city about your vehicles, you could tell them to blow you all you want, your ride would be gone. Same thing happened to me, but thinking about owning a home myself, that would make me pretty P.O.ed watching some dirt car sit for years and look like crap on my street, screwing up my property value.
Its really not unlike having a neighbor with a horribly overgrown lawn, toys in the grass and driveway and frontage in disrepair. Its just disrespect.
Oh I know ultimately I would have to either tag or get rid of my car, but I would still tell my neighbor to f off. It's the same car sitting, tagged or untagged.
The day they pass a law stopping people from having weight benches, washers and dryers, or other nonused equipment out in their yard is the day Ill cover my car up.
They already have laws against that. Check the books. They are just not enforced as well as they should be. You have to give a person 30 days notice. Some will start cleaning things up a couple of days before. After the 30 days is up and they made an effort then if it is still a mess they have to issue another 30 day notice to clean it up or a summons to court. If the person is finally cited to court and found guilty then they have a certain time frame to clean it up in or they get fined. It is a misdemeanor so the fine plus court cost is usually around $100 or less. To some people they would rather pay that than pay someone 5 times as much to clean up their trash or would rather pay the fine than get off their lazy butt and clean it up themselves.
This is an issue that should be handled in a manner specific to each individual.
Thank all of the people that are not enthusiast for the laws getting passed. The trashy individuals outnumber the enthusiast so that is who they target the laws after. You just happen to be a minority in the situation. Unfortunately when they do pass the law there will be some unhappy individuals but probably more happy than unhappy. Majority rules and sorry about your luck is the way the officials look at it.
What we need is more laws that are not followed. Find something else IMPORTANT to do. Who ever is coming up with this stuff needs to go get a real job, and stop wasting my tax dollars!! Sorry this hit a nerve.
You guys keep saying you don't want to see the old cars setting around?Well here is a solution DON'T LOOK.It is none of your business what someone has stored on their property if it is not dangerous.Modern art is some pretty ugly stuff but you can't get rid of it.Ever hear of freedom of expression?If bottles of urine are art so is a rusty chevelle.
Pretty soon theres going to be laws about how to take a ***** in your own bathroom, and what magazines are acceptable to read while doing it.
Those dudes are worthless beyond imagination, They really do need to get lives and ****. Much like the Government in general.
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