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The Japanese charmed the fuck out of him.
Imagine a Democrat bringing Kei trucks to America. Fox News would’ve been holding rolling coal rallies with F-450 Super Doody.
Also imagine a Democrat rescheduling marijuana.
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2025
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Only Nixon could go to China, as they say.
Because if a Democrat had tried to normalize relations between the US and Maoist China the Republicans would have crucified him. But when their own leader tells them to do it, it suddenly becomes a great idea.
If Republicans didn't have the principle of groveling to whoever's in charge of their party, they'd have no principles at all.
“It’s easy to want to drive one of these cute kei cars. It’s another thing to put your family in them and travel down the highway at 70 mph between a Suburban and an F-150,” said Tifani Sadek, director of the University of Michigan Law School’s Law and Mobility Program.
Making sure people can't get small car because of big car does sounds like concern about safety at first, but it's just a hidden way to say car need to be bigger and bigger, hence throwing safety of everyone else out the window and stop people from having preferences. Where's the freedom fighter when you need it.
And why do they call her an "expert" when her main job is teaching anf study about law and not safety. Her opinion is not more valuable than mine.
Sounds to me like those oversized cars are a safety risk and something should be done about that
It's more an indictment of the average American driver.
I fucking hate when people say they prefer an SUV or a truck because they feel safer or because of the "increased visibility". It especially bugs me coming from people who generally hold more progressive views because one of the reasons driving is so dangerous is due to the proliferation of large vehicles, so what they are essentially saying is very analogous to "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun".
Not to mention they will be the one that causing others visibility issue...
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And why do they call her an "expert" when her main job is teaching anf study about law and not safety. Her opinion is not more valuable than mine.
Her opinion is more valuable than yours because she's an expert on crash risk and liability, and she's commenting on the risk of driving these cars.
Everyone here is overlooking the fact that these cars are significantly less safe. They're not just unsafe because of the presence of bigger cars on the roads (although yes, that's part of it), they also have much smaller crumple zones and they lack a lot of basic safety features (e.g., the article mentions that many of them don't even have airbags).
The article also quotes two economics professors ("experts" on consumer behavior) that say they're purchased as additional vehicles, not to replace primary vehicles.
So we'd end up with more deaths and injuries from car crashes, more cars on our roads and more demand for parking spaces. But they're "cute" so I guess it's worth it.
They are extremely safe in the rest of the world. The problem isnt the car, its other shit
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Now replace the word kei car with toddler/pedestrian and compare your big car data. I think you have something new safety issues to campaign for. Congratulations
She was specifically talking about high speeds on the interstate - if there is a toddler or pedestrian in this situation, then even something as small ad a motorcycle could cause a deadly crash.
I am also anti-big car, but if there are things that the manufacturer can do to make these kei cars safer (e.g., increase crumple zones and add airbags) then I don't see why they shouldn't do that. Those are reasonable asks
In fairness, these cars were designed for environments with narrow, winding highways, not large straightaways like US interstates. They're going to be better at sharp turns and fast braking than an F150.
I think as long as drivers go in aware of the risks (like motorcyclists) it should be fine, but I don't think we should ignore that those risks exist. I would absolutely get one of these cars, but I am also a careful driver and don't have to get on the interstate for my daily commute. That doesn't fit every US driver.
@UltraMagnus @frizzo One thing we need to do is allow cities to ban personal vehicles over a certain size within their dense urban cores to cut down on crash danger, property damage, and congestion and other nuisances due to oversized vehicles parked where they don't fit. That way someone who lives an urban lifestyle could choose a minimalist car with less concern about mixing it up with monster trucks on their daily errands.
That sounds tricky to implement, but I'm not strictly opposed. I've always been more of the opinion that some streets should just be converted to people-only altogether, at least in my downtown (there's one street that gets closed to traffic once/week for the farmer's market anyways...).
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Even then, it's really typical "it won't work here", which imo she's right, because it's the US of the A and american culture is one huge problem. Kei car is popular in Japan, yet the traffic fatality is waaaaaay lower than USA. Kinda makes one wonder what is actually the problem there.
Yeah, but this is a legitimate concern in the US.
In most of the world, safety checks for cars include making sure that they are safe enough for people outside the car. There are rules about crumple zones and sharp edges, that effect how they hit pedestrians, and what they can do to other cars.
You can't drive a cyber truck in Europe or the UK. In the US, it's a free for all.
If you want smaller cars/trucks back on the road, you need to copy the safety laws from countries where people drive small cars.
Even broken clock is right once a day...
Assuming it's a 12 hour clock, a broken clock is right twice a day
A stopped 12-hour analog clock is right twice a day. A broken clock can be right any non-negative integer number of times per day.
And Trump also helped finish off the penny, so that makes twice anyway.
I don't hate the idea of making Kei cars available for niche needs. I live in a small town and I can commute and get groceries without ever going on the highway. The town is too small for public transit to be any good (seriously it takes a 1 hour bus ride with transfers for a drive that would take 12 minutes in a car). But a kei car would be perfect for this.
Also kei trucks are amazing. If it can convince some people to not daily drive a huge pickup truck just in case they need to move a couch one day it would be worth it.
I find that people who own big trucks are also happy when they get the opportunity to use the big truck to help others move furniture. It's like a boat - always better to know someone who owns a boat rather than own the boat
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I loved these little boxy cars when I was in Japan. I'm all for this!
I just want something akin to my late Honda Element. Loved that vehicle. (Even if it was a pain to work on!)
They refuse to make another like it!
I see a lot of boxy cars like that which seem to be Japan-only! I'd like to see more come here. (Maybe they could upsize a tiny bit for the REALLY long drives in the U.S haha.)
They refuse to make another like it!
Unfortunately, thank CAFE regulations. It's basically impossible to make a tall boxy car in the US that meet the regulations, because fuel efficiency targets are based almost purely on how long and wide the car is. It's way easier to make a car bigger than it is to make it more fuel efficient, so unfortunately that's what manufactures have to target.
While I'm all for efficiency regulations, CAFE is so unbelievably stupid that it desperately needs to be reworked.
Get rid of the big fucking trucks first
We already have motorcycles which are far, far less safe. No reason not to brinng in Kei trucks.
I drive what amounts to a Kei car, it seats 4, it's about 3.5m long, weighs just over 1000kg.
It's not so bad if you drive conservatively, remind your family every day that you love them, and update your will every year.
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Sounds very America first.
I'm actually not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. Because it would be a huge boon to America if we could bring kei cars here - along with adjusting our manufacturing to produce them.
Please do. Unfortunately, he actually has no intention of doing so and is only trying to get US auto manufacturers over a barrel so he can rape them blind and push his more pollution agenda to make cars worse and less safe. It's blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention. He says one thing to scare a market into a panic so they bow down and kiss the ring. I can't believe y'all are this dense?!
I think it's slightly more nefarious than just narcissism. A bunch of people trading, manipulating the market, trading again, then undoing it.
Tarrifs usually need to be planned a couple of years ahead, since it affects logistics, etc. Trump's administration irresponsibly announces mindbogglingly significant changes to tarrifs, with almost immediate effect, then undoes it over the weekend because "it was a misunderstanding", or some other flavor of incompetence.
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Target practice for all those hamster-dicked macho men in their giant ass trucks which they don't even use as trucks.
Maybe a progressive federal tax based on some ratio of weight/seats/length, or some thing like that, with exceptions for commercial use could incentive cars with saner dimensions.
Another problem with this idea that isn't mentioned in the article, comments I've yet seen:
Japan has well maintained road infrastructure in their urban areas.
The US does not.
Hit an American pot hole in one of these things, now its time for a completely new suspension, if you haven't totalled the car.
A sad kind of self reinforcing logic of giganto cars and trucks everywhere is that they massively worsen and degrade road quality far more than conventional sized cars..., yet they're also the only things big enough to be more likely to shrug off the effects from the very damage their rampant overuse causes.
The other problem of course is that these are so small, that with as many SUVS and literal WW2 tank sized trucks as we have, they would be be unsafe... you just can't defeat the mass and kinetic energy difference involved in a collision when the thing hitting you weighs, I dunno, 5x as much.
You could theoretically, say, totally revamp NSHTA and the CAFE standards, and pass something like a tax on heavier cars used for personal transit... and use that to subsidize/kickstart/incentivize domestic kei car manufacturing...
... but that would require an actual competent set of planners, and a functional government.
Which we obviously don't have.
So we're not even at step 0, not even at step -1, we are currently still undergoing an unprecedented constitutional crisis, debt/currency crisis, and general economic collapse.
Might maybe just wanna think about laying the foundation before doing the electrical.
Really? They're not too cute? 🤔
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