I would love to get my hands on one of those pickup trucks that Toyota came out with recently I think they start at like 10 or 15 grand... of course not available in the US
I would absolutely jump on an oversized kei truck or van that can handle 75mph on most interstate roads. A 1.3 to 2.5 liter inline 4, 6sp manual, lockers on the front wheels you have to get out and turn. Out the door for under 30k and I'm sold.
2.4 L I4 Turbo diesel... yeah dude I would love to have one.... I think it would absolutely kill the Side by Side Market in the us as well for most people
People are allowed to scale mountains and hang-glide for gods sake! The government doesn’t stop them. Why can’t they drive an unsafe car? The hypocrisy is strong.
Because scaling mountains and hang gliding aren’t a mass danger to the rest of society.
If you get on the road with your fucked up truck with a manufacturing defect, you have the potential to take out other people that never had a say in the defective death machine you put on the road. And if it’s being sold en masse because it’s way more affordable from skirting safety regulations, then that becomes a massive fleet of sketchy death machines that the rest of society has to deal with. While if you go mountain climbing and miss a ledge and fall to your death, there’s a high probability you aren’t murdering someone else in the process.
With that said, I won’t pretend to be an expert on American safety regulations and whether they are all valid. But if you’re wondering why there’s a difference between doing something dangerous and risky in your personal life, isn’t the same as driving on highways with a car that can hurt on other people, that’s really it.
Vehicle safety is a race to the bottom in the US. The entire design premise is “protect the driver of the vehicle at all costs.” That includes the cost of killing other drivers. The safest vehicle you can drive right now is likely one of the enormous trucks or SUVs because it brings you higher off the ground, gives you more visibility of the road, and normally have large crumple zones.
That same vehicle reduces the visibility other cars have, puts the head lights at eye level of sedans and other cars lower to the ground, and will demolish anything smaller than itself.
The only person being affected by driving a vehicle that does not have all US safety features is the driver (and passengers). The person driving the $10k hilux champ is the one who is going to be injured in a collision, not the person driving an f250 or Suburban.
There is an argument to be made about the burden on the US medical system, but the “safety features” US car companies rant about are 9/10 times features intended to prioritize the vehicle owner at the expense of everyone else on the road.
Side note: motorcycles exist and are significantly more dangerous to drive than a klei truck.
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u/Nonstopshooter21 10h ago
I would love to get my hands on one of those pickup trucks that Toyota came out with recently I think they start at like 10 or 15 grand... of course not available in the US