Are All JDM Imports Now Banned In Massachusetts?? - What I found today: June 17 2024 - Part 1 

I don't know if I'd wait for MA to figure things out because once the ball starts rolling, it will be hard to stop. The guys in Texas didn't wait because of this. Everyone should start stirring the pot(peacefully and diplomatically) now because it sounds like they haven't entirely figured this out yet. I'd be proactive now that you know and start trying to resolve this before the state goes through the effort of rolling out training videos, procedures, etc. Best of luck man. I'll be following this for sure.

Thank you in advance for your efforts.

I'm in Western Massachusetts. Happy to lobby- just need to know who to bug and how. Thanks so much!

Red tape alive and well. I'm in Australia and when we import vehicles we have to go through compliance. Part of the process is to add a state code to the Japanese car number for a legal vin number. We are going through a phase of only being able to import cars, both new and old, that have low emissions. My mini truck fits the low emission standard, but I see now they are going on about safety standards, which is a tough gig. My feeling is the car industry in the future is biased towards people buying ev's.

America is threatened by the Kei truck. It's a reminder that small vehicles can do work. Please note that NHTSA is an insurance company project designed to serve the insurance companies. It's initial intent was sound and good. The US government relies on this private company to make their safety decisions for road rules. However, since the inception of NHTSA, American auto manufacturers have slowly purchased up many of the insurance companies that make up the NHTSA's controlling interest. By the late 90's NHTSA reached an engineering/economic problem: -Consumers demanded new cars be more attractive each year. Bigger, Faster, Stronger. This affected NHTSA as new cars had to be ranked as safer than older ones, and in reality they are. However, this was achieved in two ways: Sliding the measuring scale slightly to make the new improvements each year seem bigger than they were, and to sacrifice efficiency and drive-ability to ensure that on paper the car was safer (For the occupants) if it got into a collision. Though it's possible to argue that the cars are more likely to have collisions due to their larger weight, higher roll over and greater dimensions. As this continued to stack up, this short term solution, and dilution of the original intent of NHTSA began to slowly kill the American auto industry. Combined with the broken CAFE standards the only thing profitable to manufacture was SUVs, Trucks and Large Cars as they were the most attractive to new buyers on paper by the very metrics guided by the controlling interests of NHTSA. So the snake has finally bit it's own tail. Since the US created the 25 year rule back in the early 80's to combat the flood of efficient vehicles from Europe and Japan during the Oil Crisis recovery years, they've accidentally created this problem they have today: The Golden Era of Japanese cars are finally eligible for US import and the US public is READY for small efficient cars as the conditions of the Oil Embargo Recovery period are almost mirrored in today's conditions of the gas versus electric war currently happening. So many states are now bending to outside pressure to force consumers to buy US vehicles which are pigeon holed to be stupid, big, difficult to drive, and less useful designs that aren't a very good value or attractive vehicle. The one thing American Car Manufacturers are good at? Everything other than building good cars.

I reached out to Brian W. Murray Vice Chair Joint Committee on Transportation who also happens to be my State Representative just the other day about this trend. His response was slightly dismissive in my opinion but hopefully my short essay helped lol. He responded with this "Thank you for your email. I am not aware of any pending legislation in the Massachusetts House of Representatives to ban what you refer to as “Kei” trucks."

They're trying to stop kei is the way

Kei will always be the way even with the haters. JDM is also the way.

In the interim, consider looking at Montana. Montana will give a registration and tag on almost anything, and in most cases you don;t have to take the vehicle into the state.

Count me in, I’ll mail out what ever you have. Yea, I’m worried. Maine pulled theirs, there was no grandfathering. And mass is a crappier state…..

Glad you made this video. Got denied last week and tried antique route and got denied there too. No explanation on any of the verbal or written responses as to why these are denied. Hot rods and other custom builds are fine. Let’s figure this out. Go team.

We need to start complaining now before it’s too late.. too many people lost their papers to the state and now have giant paper weights… I have a hiace sized van on the way that I paid good money for.. it should be illegal for the state to play with people’s money like this… it was allowed and now it’s banned with no warning? No vote? Just a person decided?? Crazy.. I’m not wasting time. I’m looking up who I need to contact to get this sorted and I hope more do the same

Unfortunate to see and I fear Arizona is not far behind. There have been issues already registering kei trucks and vans. They’re only issuing Motorcycle/Side by side tags for them at some MVDs, meaning they are restricted on what roads they can and can’t drive on. Hope you get things figured out, sucks to see such silly rules put in place.

No. A person who did go to registry and filled in forms put zeros in front and said he had no difficulties. Simply what I was told so not in anyway official.

Gotta make this known and stop this bullshit before it gains speed

When I imported my Suzuki Carry here to Arizona, I ran into the same short VIN problem. However, the reaction of the folks down at the DMV was to figure out a way to get it registered and titled anyway. Their problem was that their computer system wouldn't process the shorter VIN (not a pseudo-safety issue in a state that licenses ATVs to travel the roads). In fact, they also informed me that if I had collector's insurance on the vehicle, they would waive emissions testing. The response across the country is entirely patchwork, with some states (AZ) restricting kei vehicles to secondary roads, some states insisting on off-road only, and even requiring a governor be installed. I think our best hope is that thousands of these vehicles are imported every year, and, as they become more and more common, common sense will prevail. (Also, the American market for jdm imports is a big business in Japan. Maybe they could get their government to issue 17-digit serial numbers for any vehicle leaving their shores.)

So strange that Massachusetts would do this because I'm constantly hearing about how states shouldn't be interpreting federal law (immigration).

if you need to reach out to a state rep , the attleboro rep is a car guy, he used to race at seekonk speedway

About a year ago. It just throws them for a loop. If all the boxes are filled I heard all was fine. They called it a pickup truck. (Carry)

Some of us just wants a useable truck bed not a monster truck

Mass RMV is a state entity, you should be able to file a FOIA request, Freedom of Information Act. for all documentation regarding this entire fiasco!

You’d think they’d want the tax revenues cashing in on vehicle registrations. Instead were forced to pay taxes in other states in order to register these. What a backwards world.

Same shit is happening in Michigan now

So i have a Toyota Celsior n I didn’t even know about this i have not got anything in the mail or from insurance yet wow

You should Contact Louis Rossman.

We should lobby against this. If they're doingt this to JDM vehicles then EUDM vehicles are most likely next.. Talk about supposedly living in a free country..

I was told to add zero's in front to make 17

Begs the question, what is the specific safety failures? And what would need to be modified in the design to meet safety standards? Designing an American clone is tempting.

Sue them. Seriously do it. No law was changed, some bureaucrat is effectively making up laws. That can't be allowed.

what the hell would they do then with my 74 chevelle ...

Since when does state government over rule federal government?

all of this shit about safety and road standards rings hollow as fuck when you consider that motorcycles are still allowed on the roads.

Ring up or whatever you have to do to get it registered (in not in America so don’t understand all your laws) DO NOT MENTION THIS NEW LAW AT ALL. Once it’s registered they legally can’t take it off you, issue sorted. If the person on the phone brings up the law. Hang up and ring back another operater. Same thing you’d do if you didn’t like the insurance quote you got, you ring again to try get cheaper 😅 or in this case someone who doesn’t know the law so will register your car

صئد

It’s hilarious the reason sited that Kei trucks/vans don’t meet FMVSS, but the whole reason you can import them is because they are 25yo+ and they’re literally federally exempt from FMVSS requirements… if they are exempt from something you can’t claim they don’t meet that requirement, they do, they’re exempted from it! They can be registered here in California but you can’t drive them on the freeway even though they can do it. But I can completely legally ride my CRF230L on the freeway, which is terrifying and not at all fast enough to do freeway speeds comfortably. So silly. Lobbyist whoever you are, you suck we just want our mini baby cars.

Part of the solution - stop voting for demorats -- hope ya learning