If all that is working you need to be told what they mean. It all is working from your description.

The lower bulb (that orange one) is only used for turn signals.

 

See if your brake lights go on when you step on the brakes. Get someone to step on the brakes while you look.
Hazard lights and brake lights are usually different, and so are the tail lights.. On my '03, the hazards are the yellow lights and and the brake lights are red.
Maybe one of the inspectors had the day 'running' lights turned on and if so, only the headlights go on and not the tail lights.
But, the report did say the Left tail light so I guess that is not the case. Check out your tail lights in a darker area and compare both sides, right and left.
Just guessing since I don't have day 'running' lights on my '03.
Please post back when it all gets sorted out.
Buffalo4

 

My MA state inspection was rejected because "Left rear tail light is not working".
...

• I switched ON head lights are rear lights seem OK

If you can just take the inspector's word, "... rear tail light ...", I'd focus on that, and assume he works in the Department of redundancy department.

So for starters, I would ignore any consideration of brakes, hazards, etc. They may be involved at the next step of debugging, but for now you need to figure out whether your left taillight is working.

In what you wrote above, there was a lot of extraneous information, and the one thing that matters said, "lights seem OK." A more definitive observation in this one area that matters would help.

To test the taillights, you turn your headlights on and see if the taillights light up. Brakes, hazards, bright sun, work lights, will only make this simple question harder to answer.

I don't know if the inspector is concerned with light level, but they should also be symmetrically bright on left and right sides, and the taillights should be dimmer than the brake lights. Here in California, nobody cares about anything other than smog enforcement, so just driving down the street, we see all kinds of stuff.

Once you confirm any problem, next stage will be to inspect bulbs, figure out how other lights might be contributing. Also consider an intermittent problem might exist. Or maybe the inspector was inspecting in bright sunlight, etc. and screwed up.

 

My MA state inspection was rejected because "Left rear tail light is not working".

"Tail light" should mean parking/running lights. On your van ('14-'17) that function is the LED strips on both the outer (fender mounted) and inner (tailgate mounted) housings. There is no incandescent for the tail/running light function after the mid-cycle refresh. '11-'13 vans have low-wattage incandescent bulbs/filaments in those two positions.

Brake lights are only on the outer (fender mounted) housings and the upper 3rd brake light housing. It is actually ILLEGAL in the current vehicle code to have brake lights on moving panels (if they are, they have to be disabled and light up on a fixed panel if the moving panel is moved...) which explains the odd thing that the inner housings have no brake light function.

You just need to go back and get a better explanation. Based on the slightly confusing description, everything is working as designed.

-Charlie

 

Brake lights are only on the outer (fender mounted) housings and the upper 3rd brake light housing. It is actually ILLEGAL in the current vehicle code to have brake lights on moving panels (if they are, they have to be disabled and light up on a fixed panel if the moving panel is moved...) which explains the odd thing that the inner housings have no brake light function.

But the CHMSL is a brake light on a moving panel, and it doesn't get disabled when the liftgate is opened...