Originally Posted by 05EX

Signed it long ago

Originally Posted by GSXMike

Irrelevant. Most americans who WANT jdm or overseas cars are gearhead enthusiasts who would accept the challenge of learning to deal with a right hand drive vehicle, and whom typically have more keen driving abilities than the average american idiot who today doesn't even know how to drive a standard trans.

As for actual physical structure of the vehicles, they are no less safe than US spec cars, they only have shorter bumpers in most cases, which is also irrelevant for two reasons, one being that most gearheads who want jdm and like cars end up ditching the front bumper support in exchange for a giant front mount intercooler. In reality, a front mount intercooler is basically the same as the aluminum crash beam just now with a couple of pipes attached to it for the air to flow through. And second, old cars are all out of date crash test wise regardless of whether they have a US spec bumper or a foreign spec bumper.

We saw this same thing with the mclaren f1 that was eventually brought to america and made road legal through ameritech who was forced to install ugly bumper pads on top of the front bumper. Those bumper pads were eventually removed anyhow thanks to some government clowns recieving a little cash as an incentive to ignore those oh so important gov crash regulations.

In addition to the ridiculous regulations I also find the excuse to allot money to "fighting terrorism" an even bigger fraud as America has yet to ever be attacked by any foreign organized armies.

The ban on importing foreign market cars is likely for the same reason that general motors (now government motors) was required to confiscate from owners all the electric ev1's in the 90's because they were a threat to oil conpanies profits if the electric car craze caught on.

Quite simply, the bans on import of foreign vehicles to the USA are done for political and financial reasons, not safety. If it were for safety reasons countries like russia would require vehicles to be fit with bumpers almost the size of the entire car, seeing as jow they have some of the worst auto wrecks recorded in history, yet the cars they get are fitted with the same bumpers fitted on cars on NZ, Aussie and japan, etc.

I hope this post was not offensive to you, I would hate to learn that I was banned from this section also because I said something that you don't agree with.