Is it true that Americans can drive unsafe cars?

Each state is different depending on where you live you might just need for your breaks to work, your turn signs and your wipers. Some states require you to being your cars in no matter their age for a safety inspection. In the state I live in its required for all cars to be inspected yearly. I’m not driving my VW right now because I need to get the inspection done and if I’m driving it I could get a ticket. So unless I really need to drive the van I don’t. My husband car is good it recently had an inspection done so it’s okay to drive.

I no longer have or drive a car, I do not know anything about the cars here in the US anymore but anything you might want to know will be here in Wiki

Vehicles here must pass a yearly or every two year inspection. They must be in working order at inspection time or they can't pass and can't be licensed until they do pass the inspection. Any garage that passes an un-safe vehicle runs the risk of losing their state license to inspect vehicles.

It's by state and some by state and county but they impound vehicles quite often in places.

We don't have yearly checks in Australia either. If the police suspect a car is unroadworthy, they can slap a sticker on it and you have to take it over the pits (get it inspected). I think they have to have due cause to pull you up though.

This is NOT true. Depending on the state, there are certain things people must do. Not all states have safety inspections. But many do. It varies state to state.

I can tell you that in my country (Chile) every car has to be checked every year, old or new before the car can be driven in the streets

It depends on the state. Some states, such as California and Hawaii (or Hawaii did when I lived there), require not only a safety inspection but an environmental impact (emissions or "pollution") check on vehicles! Some states may not require it but the large cities will. We're a strange lot, aren't we.....

As a few people have already said, it's up to the states. So far, I have lived in 4 states. Massachusetts and Pennsylvania required yearly inspections. Illinois and Iowa don't. I don't know what the actual number is but my experience is 50% of the states require inspections. And the states that don't, don't seem to have any problems stemming from it.

I lived in Minnesota. There was no equivalent of the 'MOT' there. Now and then you would see someone driving some ridiculously and obviously unsafe vehicle (a broken windscreen, for example) but mostly they seemed to be ok. It was different on the reservations, where people would have a total wreck which they drove only there, often known as the 'res car', held together with gaffer tape and just left at the boundary to be picked up by someone else to drive back.

It may be true in some really remote places but as a rule no.

Well, driving unsafe cars not really recommended, and people are encouraged to trade those jalopies in. But, some people think they are invincible, and others a very young and unaware that they were ripped off, and their first car is about to fall apart.

so there is a designation (classic car) that the car receives. It is then limited as to speed depending on the state. However in fairness, since those plates cost a lot of money and THOSE CARS COST a lot of money, there are few owners driving them without them working perfectly.. so the answer is yes, but, not really.