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'Why Did the Government Declare War on My Adorable Tiny Truck?'
Automotive historian Dan Albert loves the "adorable tiny truck" he's driving. It's one of the small Japan-made "kei" pickups and minivans that "make up about a third of car sales in Japan." Americans can legally import older models for less than $10,000, and getting 40 miles per gallon they're "Chea...
(I did eventually get regular coverage....) Maine, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Virginia, and Michigan also tightened their rules on registering small Japanese imports in recent years. The culprit, according to the auto enthusiast press, was the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators, the trade organization that serves as the lobbying and policy arm of DMVs across North America. The Insurance Institute of Highway Safety concurred, telling AAMVA that its recommendation did not go far enough: The IIHS said that keis should join the class of conveyances that the U.S. government calls Low Speed Vehicles, which are mechanically limited to 25 miles per hour or less and should be used only for short local trips on low-speed-limit roads because they can't protect occupants in the event of a collision with a regular vehicle... [But] By 2008, Japan's kei trucks did feature crumple zones and driver airbags in compliance with that country's safety standards...
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