I can't speak for America... but in Canada (or at least in British Columbia, our westernmost province) i) we used to have annual vehicle inspections... but that ceased quite a number of years ago (to the detriment of road safety for all of us); and ii) the quality of drivers that pass drivers' tests (and get licensed) really has to be questioned. REALLY BAD. I wish Canada were more like the UK in these two items.
Oh, and by the way, I acquired some Bilt Hamber undersealer and cavity sealer (from the UK) for my Mazda6 🙂...
When I lived in Florida there were no vehicle inspections, they tried to start them again by going the voluntary route, before making it statutory but that never took off.
One of the excuses was people spent all day waiting in a queue as they all left it until the absolute last day of the month it was due instead of going at the begining of the month.
We can go up to 3 weeks befor the date it is due and still preserve that date, usually the date that the car was first registered.
The first 3 years of a new car doesn't require an MOT as its called ( the acronym dating back to when they first started testing Ministry of Transport. The departments name has evolved many times since like they do).
Tests started in 1960 on 10 year old cars, then changed to 3 years and every year there after. If the police stop you for some motoring offence they will first check who the owner is, is it insured, has it got an MOT and is it taxed ( yearly like insurance) they can do all this before getting out the car with their on board computer. There are also Number Plate Recognition Speed cameras in various places which can check if a car is legally on the road tax, MOT & Insurance, if one is missing you get a fine through the post. Number plates front and rear are in 4 inch black letters 1/2" thick on a whit plate at the front and yellow at the rear easily seen by cameras and others. For 99% of the drivers everything is ok, its catching the crooks, stolen un-roadworthy vehicles etc which is an advantage to all law abiding drivers.
Driving instruction and testing I would say has detiorated over the years, though still has not sunk to the level of Florida. We took our driving test which lasted 1 hour, driving through the city as a normal motorist meeting all the usual hazards,plus certain manouvres we had to perform were on narrow, heavily cambered streets, hills etc. If you roll forward or backward on a 3 point turn or a hill start then its an automatic fail of the test as you have not got the car under control.