If you’re not from Michigan and are driving through the state, you’ll notice something peculiar. The cars have no front plates! For out-of-staters, it’s shocking to see such freedom. For New Yorkers, or God forbid, Canadians, it’s positively scandalous.
Here’s how things work in places like New York: You need a front and back license plate—yes, that means drilling holes in the front bumper of your new whip. And your registration sticker isn’t on the back license plate, it’s plastered on the inside of your front windshield and impossible to remove without noxious chemicals.
That sticker goes right next to your mandatory vehicle inspection sticker, which you get for passing not just safety testing but also emissions testing. Older cars always fail it, and drivers are forced to buy strange little devices online that trick the sensors for a few hours to pass. If you fail? Your car’s off the road. Tough luck.
Meanwhile, in the Great Lakes State, you visit the Secretary of State and they hand you a license plate and a little orange sticker and send you on your way.
The highway speed limit also keeps decreasing in New York and elsewhere, currently standing at the snail’s pace of 65 mph. Few stick to this, of course, which means the troopers have a field day. Safety concerns be damned, we all know that’s the real point. Tickets are common, and hell, the red lights in the cities even have automatic cameras on them. Run a red by a split second and you get fined via snail mail.
All of this is to say that Michigan car culture feels like liberty for those who dwell in a real nanny state.
If all these regulations meaningfully improved safety, perhaps they’d be tolerable. But since when have Americans preferred safety over liberty? One wonders when they’ll simply ban motorcycles altogether, for example. If they were invented today, New York would never allow them on the road.
Michigan car culture goes deeper than just the absence of regulations. If you judge the spirit of a people by how they drive, Michigan doesn’t disappoint. Michiganders drive fast and with authority. The speed limits on the highway are high enough to gun it in the passing lane when needed, and you’ve got some room for excess before it draws an eye.
Sure, the cops are out sometimes, a trooper might pull you over, but that’s all part of the game. This is a state that loves its cars, loves to drive, and has no interest in getting in your way. Thank you, Big Auto!
Cross the border from Michigan into Canada and… oh boy. Once you finish calculating whatever the hell 100 kph is (a paltry 62 mph), you realize you’ve already been speeding for 20 minutes, and start praying the Mounties didn’t see you. Canadians drive at a snail’s pace, slow and languid, until you near Hamilton. Then the BMWs and Mercedes come out, with oversized rims, underbody lights, and blacked-out windows. They blast Drake, drive 100 mph, and you know immediately that these aren’t your usual Canadians. Criticize Trudeau’s immigration policy all you want, but these new boys are bringing some vitality to the great Canadian highways.
Forgive me, let’s leave the poor Canadians alone. They have enough problems of their own to deal with. It’s just a useful example for Michiganders who’ve never known anything different than the remarkably free car culture we enjoy.
Corporate lobbying is widely derided, and deservedly so at times, but it doesn’t take much guessing to figure out why stupid auto regulations are absent in Michigan. Big Auto has no interest in hindering Michigan’s car culture, and given its influence in the state, one can safely assume the Big Three quickly put any silly ideas from state legislators to bed.
When liberty and business coincide, there’s real room for the American Dream to take root. Now, if only they’d put that same energy towards fixing all the potholes, then we’d really sing their praises.
Bobby Mars is an artist, alter ego, and former art professor. Follow him on X @bobby_on_mars.
