Re:Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
by LucasBrandt on Thursday April 20, 2023 @05:37PM
(#35646708)
I'll take the theoretical chance of an "epidemic of minitruck highway deaths" over the current reality of an epidemic of traffic fatalities made worse by cars and trucks getting heavier, taller, and deadlier.
Re:Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks
by angry_octet on Thursday April 20, 2023 @05:09PM
(#35646366)
There's a bit of confusion here: there are modern small cars/vans/trucks that are safe (e.g. https://www.euroncap.com/en/press-media/press-releases/euro-...) but efficient and well designed, and then there are new vehicles built for a slightly lower price with safety features like crumple zones entirely absent, commonly sold in Mexico. These are death traps. Many of the Chinese trucks (e.g. Great Wall) were like that too, but they do make safer ones now.
It's the same somewhat bizarre logic that makes it fine to register say, a 1969 VW Beetle in the US, but not a 2004 Mexican Beetle that's no less clean or safe. The older stuff gets grandfathered in because at that age there's hardly anyone willing to bother. But if new minitrucks were road legal, they'd be everywhere, and there might be an epidemic of minitruck highway deaths, etc.