Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks • Hacker News Board

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#471

Post by masklinn » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 7:29 AM UTC

fortuna86 wrote: post #427

bluSCALE4 wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans are aggressive as hell. I'm willing to bet that cyclist are maimed and murdered hourly by aggressive drivers and get away with it. I was personally ran off the road by an SUV because I apparently angered the driver, because yeah, killing me totally teaches me a lesson.

US isn't even on the top 10 list of worst / most aggressive drivers. They at least respect lanes as drawn on the road.

> They at least respect lanes as drawn on the road.

Sometimes anyway. Ignoring lanes when making a turn (e.g. drift out on a multi-lane turn) is sadly common.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#472

Post by burnished » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 7:31 AM UTC

deaddodo wrote: post #462

alpaca128 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And most of those cyclists would love to be on a bike lane instead, but those often just don't exist. From personal experience it's also annoying when I get hate from car drivers who assume I deliberately use the road instead of the "bike lane" which is in fact only meant for pedestrians, but try to explain that in half a second while passing and when the official road markings are only visible with forensic tools.

While LA is hardly a paragon of bicycling accessibility, it does have a ton of dedicated cycling routes (I’m talking 8-12+ ft wide, dedicated pathways) that can get bicyclists to most of the major hubs throughout the city. Even still, you’ll see the occasional bicyclist(s) who wants to drive down Washington Blvd during rush hours Because-They-Can(TM) and the cycling path is a little too inconvenient for them, holding…

How outrageous, they want to use the infrastructure like they're people?

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#473

Post by md_ » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 7:33 AM UTC

echelon wrote: post #377

quadrifoliate wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The /r/fuckcars folks are being a little dishonest here. As another commenter mentioned, this is like asking a vegan for steak recommendations at a restaurant. The subreddit is specifically named 'fuck cars'. How exactly are they being dishonest ? This is more like r/vegan showing how a vegan meal is better than a steak meal along some dimension, say, environmental impact. > I live in an urban area close enough to…

> How exactly are they being dishonest? They're comparing on a single dimension and laughing at F-150 owners. > This is more like r/vegan showing how a vegan meal is better than a steak meal along some dimension, say, environmental impact. Not when evaluating a purchasing decision, overall utility, or customer demographics and needs. I'm showing that morally opposed parties inject themselves and their biases orthogon…

I grew up in agricultural rural America in the 80s and 90s. Tons of pickup trucks and, later, SUVs! Subjectively, though, I'd say:

* The real farm families would have a pickup for pulling a horse trailer, moving mulch/manure/hay bales/equipment, but also have a regular sedan for, like, driving places.

* The suburban families would have a pickup or SUV as a daily driver.

A quick Google search seems to back my impresssion:

"According to Edwards’ data, 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less."

As you say, taxing the externality is reasonable (and currently imperfect, in a few dimensions). One reason to look especially hard at SUVs and light trucks is that they have externalities in a number of dimensions (road wear, emissions, accident safety for other cars) and seem to have very limited utility (most people who buy them aren't really using them for their supposed purpose).

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#474

Post by deaddodo » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 7:39 AM UTC

burnished wrote: post #472

deaddodo wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While LA is hardly a paragon of bicycling accessibility, it does have a ton of dedicated cycling routes (I’m talking 8-12+ ft wide, dedicated pathways) that can get bicyclists to most of the major hubs throughout the city. Even still, you’ll see the occasional bicyclist(s) who wants to drive down Washington Blvd during rush hours Because-They-Can(TM) and the cycling path is a little too inconvenient for them, holding…

How outrageous, they want to use the infrastructure like they're people?

It's almost like, in a society, you sometimes give up some of your personal entitlements for the greater good.

It's why you'd also be called entitled for using an elevator for your personal enjoyment, for defecating in a public pool, for playing around in a turnstile or for refusing to get vaccinated during a worldwide pandemic.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#475

Post by zamnos » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 7:49 AM UTC

linguae wrote: post #212

nostromo wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be the point of safety and emissions regulations if we let everyone bypass them by importing vehicles from abroad? The vehicles meeting the requirements wouldn't be competitive on price because they'd be playing by a different set of rules.

California has an answer to that: imported cars are generally required to meet the same emissions standards as cars intended for the domestic market: https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/vehicle-registration/new-regis... From the California DMV's web page on direct imported vehicles: "If your direct foreign import vehicle was not originally manufactured to meet California emissions standards and DOT FMVSS, the vehicle canno…

Emissions, sure. If you're someone deeply involved in the car industry, you'll have a DMV person (not officially, just from having spent that much time there), and they'll help you work through the process, which includes an inspector examining your car in the DMV parking lot. The harder one to meet is Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) you mentioned above, which includes crash testing.

It's one thing to work on your car and get it to pass smog. It's another thing entirely to buy a dozen of them.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#476

Post by kylehotchkiss » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 7:53 AM UTC

jccalhoun wrote: post #293

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume you're not in USA - I can't imagine being allowed to import the Mahindra copy-paste Jeep into USA. Those clones are so blatant... Wish they added some more Indian flair to them. I can't believe jeep still bothered to enter the Indian market with that on the roads!

Mahindra was originally going to release a vehicle that looked a lot like the original Jeep but Jeep fought them and they changed the looks of it (Kind of reminds me of a Rivian now) https://jalopnik.com/the-2021-mahindra-roxor-looks-like-a-ha...

I love it! Great revision and character.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#477

Post by ricardobayes » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 7:53 AM UTC

ElFitz wrote: post #371

iambateman wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is all true…and also American drivers are legitimately aggressive toward these kind of vehicles. They have a terrible reputation, primarily because they get used a lot by people who can’t afford a car. I wish it were different, but driving a moped/Vespa on American roads is a pretty big risk.

So American drivers are aggressive towards those they think to be poorer than them? Why do you think that is? (genuinely curious)

Everyone who's driving slower than you is an idiot and everyone who's driving faster than you is an asshole

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#478

Post by zirgs » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 7:55 AM UTC

nyx wrote: post #29

The 25-year import rule here, which bans Americans from importing vehicles from other countries unless they're 25+ years old, is just awful for those of us who would be interested in driving small, efficient foreign cars. It would be great to live completely car-free, but absent major changes to how we plan our cities, it's just a sad reality that cars are a necessary ingredient to life in the vast majority of Americ…

Haha, if my country had a 25 year ban then there would be very few cars on the road and Germany would have to find some other place where to dump their used cars.

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#479

Post by m000 » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 7:58 AM UTC

HWR_14 wrote: post #467

worthless-trash wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain this a little more (I dont live in the US and a preliminary search is failing me). It sounds as though the 'regulations' are preventing US consumers from having a choice in trucks, which.. kinda makes no sense from what I've seen in the wide range of oversized trucks in the US.

Bigger vehicles are "trucks" and smaller vehicles are "cars". They have different standards. So while a small Japanese truck may have more efficient than a larger truck, it is legally a very inefficient car. This is also why SUVs exist, they are legally trucks for fuel efficiency/etc.

These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us [1] explains in detail how "trucks" overtook "cars" as the most popular vehicle in the US, and legislation that lead to that.

(Quotes because the words refer to the legal definition of trucks/cars.)

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo

Re: Rural Americans are importing tiny Japanese pickup trucks

#480

Post by dep_b » Fri, Apr 21, 2023, 8:00 AM UTC

deaddodo wrote: post #470

stevev wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 25-year import rule serves as evidence of how the United States has struggled in competition and developing vehicles over the past several decades. Toyota and Subaru are present in the United States because there is an incentive to manufacture them locally, which serves as a valuable learning experience for the US. Thus the United States' car manufacturers are either perceived as being of low quality or lagging b…

There are a couple issues with your assessment. A) most cars manufactured by European and Japanese brands are built in Mexico and direct imported via NAFTA/USMCA. The fact that Toyota and Honda choose to continue to do manufacturing in the United States is probably seen as a boon to those local communities. B) the "low quality" image of American brands is pretty limited to the United States, like a lot of American pr…

For some reason there’s a niche of people that drive RAM Vans in the Netherlands. Not sure why exactly that brand and model but it’s the only ‘Murican style trick you see on our roads.