No car buying on Sundays

In 14 states in the United States of America, it's illegal for a car dealer to sell you a car on Sunday. Haven't you ever wondered why dealerships are closed on Sundays? The laws are obviously very old, but they're still in effect. (And some dealers aren't even complaining.)

Sunday just happens to be the second busiest shopping day of the week. Some people believe Sunday should be a day of church and rest, and this law helps with those goals. When the bans on Sunday car sales went into effect, they were intended to essentially give dealers the day off without worrying about what the competition was doing. With the law in effect, everyone is closed on Sundays.

But in a modern society, such a rule seems silly. We can go shopping for just about anything we want on any day of the week, but no cars on Sundays! Maybe this law will be revisited in light of the troubles car dealers are having lately. I doubt repealing the laws will have any effect, though. Taking a silly law off the books isn't going to create a bunch of new car buyers. It will just give the existing customers an extra day to do their shopping.

Tracy L. Coenen, CPA, MBA, CFE performs fraud examinations and financial investigations for her company Sequence Inc. Forensic Accounting, and is the author of Essentials of Corporate Fraud.