# illegal to wash your car in America?



## CLCC

What is this video all about?


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## Carshine

I am not 100% sure, but I think he had parked the car out on the public street and was doing autowork, which was illegal. He must have moved his car when someone threatened about calling the cops. I don't know this story, but reading some of the comments, I think something like that happened. Ofcourse the cops wouldn't respond to some complaint about a guy washing his car in his private driveway..


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## svended

This was discussed on another forum a while ago. 
The video here is deliberately taken out of context by the people filming the police responce. The police are actually responding to another complaint of the arguementative guy from a neighbour that he was again washing a car on the road in front of the house and not on his drive way. Reading down through the comments there are likes that take you to other complaints of him working on not just his own car on the road in front of the house and cleaning cars on the road also. It's only illegal to wash the car on the road in that the wash from the car will go down the drain. 
Some states do have what I would call odd laws such as having to park a minimum distance from the kerbside to allow rain water to wash away, parking on the side of the road in the direction of travel (ie driver side into the road), some won't allow cars to park on the front (the road) of a property and so must be on the drive way. Another one is one I'm seeing here in the U.K. More oftem now which is no vans or commercial vehicles not just on the road (except when working) but on your own drive way also.


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## m4rkymark

svended your right lots of new housing estates(for want of a better term) say you can park vans/commercial vehicles in front of your house - its all ******** though - if the road is a public road they cant do a thing about you parking a van or commercial vehicle on the road.


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## TOGWT

The Federal Clean Water Act deems it illegal for anyone to throw, dispose of or allow anything other than rainwater into the storm drains


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## Lowiepete

TOGWT said:


> The Federal Clean Water Act deems it illegal for anyone to throw, dispose of or allow anything other than rainwater into the storm drains


We have similar laws here in the UK, only not quite as stringent or so dutifully
enforced. Yet, here in the UK we flaunt them as if it's a right. Every time I see
a post about snowfoam here, a little bit of me dies.

There is one common factor with snowfoam; it mustn't only not reach storm
drains, it must _not_ reach any natural water course either! That means the
water used with snowfoam must be collected and properly treated. How often
do you see pictures of that here, in a place that's meant to exemplify good
practice? The number of times that people raise new threads querying the 
benefit of snowfoam should raise eyebrows about whether it's worth it, but 
they don't. Quite the opposite!

Snowfoam was designed for washing high-sided vehicles in designated areas
where the run-off is collected and treated. What part of that even begins to 
resemble car washing? I'm not speaking as any kind of eco-warrior here!

There's a reason why car washing is restricted in these places. It's simply
based upon treating uncontaminated water as the precious resource that it is.
That result has come from having to deal with historical levels of pollution.
It seems that no-one wants to learn from their past. I certainly don't want
to ever see, or smell, a dead river of the 1980's ever again. That sight, over 
several months, drove home to me the value of clean water!

If they aren't there already, get used to the idea that water use restrictions 
are on the way to somewhere very near you. It's what has caused the advent
of waterless wash and all sorts of new paint coatings to help reduce washing 
frequency needs. Personally, I hate washing cars with any number of buckets;
always have done!

Having said that, I adore stroking the wonderful curves of my car and seeing 
them shiny. There's no need to cry; less water use makes maintaining a car's
paint much easier and so much more pleasurable; and no, I don't live with 
swirl-hell either; far from it! :car:

Regards,
Steve


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## Bildeb0rg

I won't defend the indefensible, but even if all 2000+ members on here all decided to throw 50ml of foam at our cars at the same time we would still fall short of the real dangers posed to this planet by the likes of the Ganges, Yellow River, Mississippi, Jordan et al not forgetting a few choice irradiated lakes in Russia and any amount of other bodies of water out there. There are better conservation targets out there than my drive way, now if you will excuse me I'm off to wash my car.


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## Lowiepete

^^^^ exactly the attitude that brought about these laws!

I totally agree about the 2,000, but that doesn't change the need to respect
_clean_ water as a finite and precious resource - it's the restricting of millions 
of others _by law_ that make the problem a little less worse than it could be...

With Season's Greetings,
Steve


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## Bildeb0rg

^^^^^^^^^
No, these laws are brought about by corrupt governments hitting soft targets that they know will fold as they have little or no means of defending themselves. Didn't see the White House send in the po po when Dow, Exxon or even BP got a bit careless. In fact, feel free to post the letters you wrote in protest to the above, or perhaps you were too busy on the Rainbow Warrior to bother with to real issues out there?


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## Avanti

svended said:


> This was discussed on another forum a while ago.
> The video here is deliberately taken out of context by the people filming the police responce. The police are actually responding to another complaint of the arguementative guy from a neighbour that he was again washing a car on the road in front of the house and not on his drive way. Reading down through the comments there are likes that take you to other complaints of him working on not just his own car on the road in front of the house and cleaning cars on the road also. It's only illegal to wash the car on the road in that the wash from the car will go down the drain.
> Some states do have what I would call odd laws such as having to park a minimum distance from the kerbside to allow rain water to wash away, parking on the side of the road in the direction of travel (ie driver side into the road), some won't allow cars to park on the front (the road) of a property and so must be on the drive way. *Another one is one I'm seeing here in the U.K. More oftem now which is no vans or commercial vehicles not just on the road (except when working) but on your own drive way also.*


To be fair, it does look an eye sore on some streets , but at least the people are working.


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## Lowiepete

Bildeb0rg said:


> Didn't see the White House send in the po po when Dow, Exxon or even BP got a bit careless. In fact, feel free to post the letters you wrote in protest to the above, or perhaps you were too busy on the Rainbow Warrior to bother with to real issues out there?


Stuff and nonsense! Your anger has blinded you. I seem to recall us Brits 
trying to cry foul over Obamama's (<-deliberate typo!) targetting of BP, and 
isn't "bit" rather stretching the under-statement over the devastation those
companies caused?

Governments have always kow-towed to the oil companies; nothing new there!
Now that the USA is self-sufficient in oil, that will probably get worse rather
than better. However, _enforced_ water restrictions live far closer to you 
than you may think. Just ask anyone living in Germany, and further afield(?)

You clearly mis-represented me by your accusation of eco-warriorship; do
please desist! My main point was that we should perhaps learn from past 
mistakes; something that the human race has found a tad impossible to date,
but might wake up to, probably too late. Do you recall any of the devastating 
pollution scenes from the 1960s onwards?

What beats me is that people can have such a phillistine disregard for their
_own_ environment, and for anyone or everyone who follows them into it, be 
it family or neighbour. Life is so short that we are but its temporary guardians,
so what right do we have to potentially destroy it, for us or them? Being that 
we're talking about water usage, it can be far more local than you might think.

I might disclaim being an eco warrior, but I quite enjoy attempting (maybe
not too successfully) to live by the maxim of leaving nothing but footprints. 
When they come, I won't be worried by the _enforcement_ of the existing 
water restrictions; the sooner the better I say. By use of 21stC tech, I've 
found that car cleaning is a lot easier to do anyway.

With Season's Greetings,
Steve


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## Caledoniandream

I think people take here liberty with some facts: 
Anything not natural found is a chemical, however "clean" the manufacturer it claims to be.
What is the difference of 50ml chemicals dissolved in 5 ltr or water or 50 ltr of water? Yes 45 ltr of water!
But the same amount of chemicals still enters the water system. 
Snow foam (not a fan of) is a small amount of chemicals (soap) blown up with air, nothing more nothing less, you could get the same effect with any soap. 

The difference between "waterless" and a good rinsing down, is the amount of water you use, what can be a problem in different countries. (e.g. Germany) 
But after you used waterless, you still have to wash your Microfibers in your wash machine, put the dirty rest water down the drain etc. 

Some people put the point up that wash water shouldn't go down the storm drain, do you really have an "Industrial" 2 pipe system in your street, or do your storm drains run straight into the river beside your house? 
For most people not, and their wash water goes together with the: 
Dish wash water (the fairy liquid or much worse the dish washer tablets and salts) 
Washing machine wash water including the silicon containing "conditioner"
Your shower gel / soap / shampoo and any other rubbish we put on our bodies.

We wash our microfiber cloth in the wash machine, putting all kind of petrochemical contaminants down the drain. 

I just try to say we think we are "eco" friendly, we are not, as long as we have cars that pollute the waterways, the time bomb ticks.

The only "Eco" friendly way to clean our cars is to brush the dust dry of, not using water or only the rain when it's falling down, ignore the swirls, but you would be on the right way. 

Its difficult to get it right, in the 70's and 80's when our rivers where dead to industrial pollution, the Governments of Europe thought it was all the fault of the house women washing clothes with soap containing phosphates. Phosphates are food for algae, so rivers and streams turned green and slimy. Phosphates also makes washing powder bloody powerful.
So these wise men, with all their knowledge decided to make phosphate a forbidden ingredient in washing powder, looks like a good idea. 
It did remove in years the green tinge of slow running stream, but it caused a big eco disaster that nearly destroyed our food supply. 
The fish in the North Sea, had adapted to the increase of food coming out for example the big Delta (Maas, Rijn, Waal en Schelde) and their population had increased, being able to feed the fast growing population in the welfare states
around the North Sea.
In the 90's there was the need for calling quota's on the amount of fish (Herring for the Dutch) due to over fishing and slower grow of fish. 
What I try to say is because it's called Eco friendly, it is not always the case!


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## smegal

Lowiepete said:


> We have similar laws here in the UK, only not quite as stringent or so dutifully
> enforced. Yet, here in the UK we flaunt them as if it's a right. Every time I see
> a post about snowfoam here, a little bit of me dies.
> 
> There is one common factor with snowfoam; it mustn't only not reach storm
> drains, it must _not_ reach any natural water course either! That means the
> water used with snowfoam must be collected and properly treated. How often
> do you see pictures of that here, in a place that's meant to exemplify good
> practice? The number of times that people raise new threads querying the
> benefit of snowfoam should raise eyebrows about whether it's worth it, but
> they don't. Quite the opposite!
> 
> Snowfoam was designed for washing high-sided vehicles in designated areas
> where the run-off is collected and treated. What part of that even begins to
> resemble car washing? I'm not speaking as any kind of eco-warrior here!


The UK mainly uses "combined sewers" most drainage water ends up getting treated as sewage (apart from during storms when it all ends up in rivers). Hence paying extra for waste water treatment above your consumption.

If you want to criticise snowfoam do it because it's a gimmick, not because of the risk of contaminating water courses. I also don't recall seeing many car washing products that aren't biodegradable.


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