Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you didn't block them as imports, we'd have > lots of people just go to Mexico and buy > highly-polluting vehicles to save money, and our > problem with smog in the border states would be > much worse. In Australia there are a set of guidelines required for vehicle imports, they even outline pollution and safety requirements that must be met before it can be registered or driven on public roads. On-road non impo…
America's standards for road worthy are just that much higher. IF you: start a car company, buy a bunch of them so the NHTSA can crash test them (thanks Mercedes-Benz for that one), fix them up so they meet modern Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) (which includes backup cameras, among other things), fix them up to meet smog standards (for California), which means it'll also need a compliant OBDII port (a…
Its probably just that the government has been bought by the appropriate lobby and this has not happened in Australia yet.