Do we really need all that safety stuff?

[niky]

Originally Posted by Hersbird

As of 2008 even with the 25% tax they are illegal Change in Non-Compliant Mini-Truck Importations | U.S. Customs and Border Protection

Read it carefully.

These are not your chicken-tax pick-ups.

This law covers tiny Kei-trucks converted to off-road spec so as not to require compliance with the clean air act.

And frankly, it doesn't ban them. At all. It simply requires that the modifications to make them exempt from EPA regulation, so they can be registered as off-road vehicles (in this case, addition of speed governors), be performed before they are imported to the USA.

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Your guy in India, as long as he's willing to make those modifications, can send those trucks over pretty easily as off-road equipment. Hell... that's how many off-road outfitters do business, as it is.

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[Hersbird]

I agree that is not the exact link but it is part of the ban on mini trucks that went into place in 2008. I give up on the topic at hand, off road means just that. I don't wan't something to mow themy yard with. I want a car. A simple inexpensive car that doesn't necessarily have any safety features that I can use like a car. You know a car that you drive to work or to the store. A simple car that is already being produced in mass in other countries that is banned by federal law from being on US highways. The only possible way is to change to laws and because of corporate cronyism on both sides, and so any people who feel the need to control what other people are doing this along with pretty much every new government regulation enacted never, ever goes away.
Go read up on the nightmares minitruck owners have with the laws, here is the final post on the subject at the biggest minitruck forum. It came down to everybody's workaround comes down to breaking federal law. http://minitrucktalk.com/threads/leg...se-trucks.188/
Here is a link to the current EPA faq on mini trucks. I can only find it as a PDF. Basically it says you can import old trucks if limited to 25 mph and allowed for off road use, but anything newer then a 2004 is not allowed period.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...eHst-j-INZxGWg

[duncan]

Hersbird

You are fine until - you want to use it our communal property - the roads

You want to use something that does not meet the communal standards on the communal property

Your freedom to swing your fist stops at my nose
Your freedom to drive what you like stops at your property boundary
(and even then I don't think you should be allowed to pollute "our" air)

[IamIan]

Originally Posted by Hersbird

Kit cars that are all new need to meet all current laws. the laws specifically say "Any attempt to use this policy to circumvent the Clean Air Act or the Imports regulations will be considered a violation of the Clean Air Act and will be strictly enforced."

Clean air act is not the air bags , crumpel zones, seat belts, etc .. 'safety' devices that were asked to avoid.

The exhaust only has to reach minimum clean air act regulations .. what you sited there ... has nothing to do with air bags, and all that 'safety' stuff you were asking to avoid ... Minimum Clean Air Act should not be that hard to achieve ... especially sense you only have to achieve it during the testing.

Look at Link the basic starter site for laws about self made and kit cars ... you can ... even if you chose not to ... you can use this route to legally get the car you said you wanted... short version ... it is a 100% perfectly legal path to the vehicle you said you wanted... The government is NOT stopping you or banning you from doing this... It's actually made special exemptions to make it easier for you as an individual to do it than it would be for a large retail company like GM.

Originally Posted by Hersbird

The laws cannot be changed with 17% voter support, that is the funniest one of all your ideas and shows that you are not actually taking the discussion seriously.

I am taking the conversation seriously.

I'm trying to encourage you to actually do something about what you say you want to change ... don't just sit there telling yourself over and over you can't do it... If you want it ... go get it.

It of course varies ... but ... here is an example of the same concept I described previously.... If you want real numbers to go with the concept itself described previously.

Link

Notice the regular pattern of low voter turn out %.

You don't need a majority to win an election ... you only need to have the highest % who turn out.

40% Person A
35% Person B
25% Person C

Person A will win that election.

2010 ... 37.8% of registered voters turned out ... 18.91% would have still won if all the other 18.89% voted together against you ... but thanks to there being die hard straight party voters ... you don't need to have that 18.91% ... only only have to have the highest % ... like Person A above.

1998 ... it was 36.4% ... and you would have needed less than 18.21%

etc... etc.

~17% of eligible voters voting with you ... will win most of those elections.

Originally Posted by Hersbird

Even if I was in the minority, and I probably am, it is good to know that there are still big thumb folks out there like you who seem to revel in forced conformity. I say live and let live.

???? I have no idea where you pulled that (piece of fiction about me) from ???

I've encouraged you numerous times not to conform ... I've encouraged you to go out and do it ... I've encouraged you to go for what you want to have ... even if it isn't what the majority wants .. I've encouraged you try and work to make the improvements you think are wrong with the system as it is now. ????

So yes ... YOU CAN DO IT !!!!

[ksa8907]

wow, this thread has touched on a lot of topics.

carry on...

[PaulB2]

Your freedom to swing your fist stops at my nose
Your freedom to drive what you like stops at your property boundary
(and even then I don't think you should be allowed to pollute "our" air).

Robert Heinlein said something related to this:
"Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort."

[niky]

Normally, I'm of the libertarian bent. You can do any damn fool thing you want to as long as it doesn't affect me.

Nobody needs a license to drive. No vehicle needs a registration to run. As long as you're running on your property, you should be able to do whatever you want.

The big problem with cars is that they run on a road system shared by many users, and there is a contractual obligation amongst all road users to follow those rules. Those contractual obligations are set by the government, which serves as oversight for those roads.

Don't want to meet those obligations, then don't use the roads.

It's really that simple, and nothing to do with control.

Every action you take that goes against those obligations increases the cost for everyone else using communal property... whether it be in terms of road repair, insurance costs or the cost of enforcement (police and emergency response to accidents, etcetera).

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Now, if you want exemption from some of those rules, on the basis that your exemption will be for the good of all, then you can put a proposal to a vote.

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Or, contrawise, vote with your wallet. If you can get a hundred thousand people a year to buy the "tiny", "underpowered" Mirage... then perhaps manufacturers will be more keen to send more of the same your way.

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It's actually kind of sad that you can't get Kei cars in the US. And eventually, you might not be able to get them anywhere.

Keis are simply too small to sell outside of Japan. They sell like gangbusters inside because the taxes on anything non-Kei are ridiculous. But absent of any market-distorting taxes, they're not competitive against the global A-Class. We get variants of Japanese Keis here from Toyota and Suzuki, but they rebuild them with bigger bodies and engines to meet market demand.

And it's hurting the Japanese. There are complaints that money spent engineering Kei cars is money wasted, since they can't sell them anywhere outside of Japan.

Japan is now trying to close that gap. They're raising taxes on Kei cars. Methinks they could simply better the situation by making taxes a flat value tax and let the market decide what it wants.

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It would be nice if we could buy Kei cars officially outside Japan... but I doubt it'll ever happen. Shame. I rather like the new Honda N-One. And at $9.7k in Japan, it's not all that expensive.

[gone-ot]

I refer to it as the "Commode Effect" -- Whatever YOU do is OK as long as the "splatter" from what you do does NOT affect ME.

[freebeard]

Originally Posted by ksa8907

Wow, this thread has touched on a lot of topics.

...and some of them pretty tender, too.

Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr

The easiest way to circumvent safety regulations in the U.S. seems to be those sandrail buggies. But the emissions issue seems to be enforced kinda strictly.

Sandrails are street-legal in, at least, Florida. An EV sandrails with composite body armor plating and nerf bars would be awesome.

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

You want a company to design, build, market and distribute a vehicle then provide you with a parts supply chain and warranty support. You want to ride the economy of scale that the entire motoring public provides while demanding a product that the rest of the market doesn't want. Then you make it even more laughable by demanding your custom spec at a price that the mass market doesn't meet on it's own.

America is full of street rod shops—many of them want to maintain a high build quality, but rats and bobbers are popular right now.

[cRiPpLe_rOoStEr]

Originally Posted by niky

Keis are simply too small to sell outside of Japan. They sell like gangbusters inside because the taxes on anything non-Kei are ridiculous. But absent of any market-distorting taxes, they're not competitive against the global A-Class. We get variants of Japanese Keis here from Toyota and Suzuki, but they rebuild them with bigger bodies and engines to meet market demand.

And it's hurting the Japanese. There are complaints that money spent engineering Kei cars is money wasted, since they can't sell them anywhere outside of Japan.

Japan is now trying to close that gap. They're raising taxes on Kei cars. Methinks they could simply better the situation by making taxes a flat value tax and let the market decide what it wants.

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It would be nice if we could buy Kei cars officially outside Japan... but I doubt it'll ever happen. Shame. I rather like the new Honda N-One. And at $9.7k in Japan, it's not all that expensive.

Jap automakers could actually sell Keis nearly everywhere they would comply to emission and safety standards, from "developing" countries such as Brazil, India and South Africa to developed countries such as Canada and Germany.