An invoice that will soon be presented to the Colorado Legislative Assembly would authorize the Japanese mini-vehicles on the maximum state roads.
Kei cars and trucks, known as Kei-Jidōsha, or gentle cars in Japan, where the maximum of them are manufactured, they gain popularity in the United States, however, many states have banned them in recent years, categorizing as non-cars valuable or mentioning protection problems. American buyers can import higher Kei cars that are exempt from federal emissions and security regulations for less than $ 5,000.
The Colorado motor cars division also tried to explicitly prohibit them last year, then withdrew their proposed rule. However, some Kei car owners say that the State is still looking to keep them away from the road by refusing to allow them to participate in the emission verification process.
Now, the proposed law can resolve the legality of small vehicles. One of the sponsors of the next bill, Senator Nick Hinrichsen, D-Pueblo, said that KEI trucks can be useful for agricultural paintings and in dense villages where the area is tight.
“When you have to be parallel, you will have to enter narrow alleyways, you will have to move through traffic, sending the shipping site [construction], but you can do it with a vehicle along a mini-cooper instead of an F-150 ”Hinrichsen said in an interview.
Hinrichsen and other defenders gently admit microse-vehicles, which have maximum speeds of around 60 miles consisting of the time and can lack fashion protection devices such as airbags, are suitable for state roads and other important roads. Their bill would restrict them to those path, he said.
“But surely there is no explanation why they are safely exploited in the streets of the city or on the roads of the farm [or] state roads where the restricted speed is 55,” he said.
The invoice already has Governor Jared Polis. A spokesman said he was “delighted to make consumers selection of affordable cars and is anxious for Kei’s freedom. “
However, Kei vehicles have faced the opposition of organizations for the application of the law, motor vehicles and car dealers.
Ryan Albarelli, Broomfield software engineer, grew below a truck. But as an adult with young people and invoices, it may never justify the incredibly high load of an American truck of America in mass fashion.
Then, a vacation in Japan, he saw Kei trucks and the idea that one of them can keep at the optimal point between public facilities and the economy: advertisements of muscle trucks are condemned.
“This is the opposite of a giant male truck. It is a small vehicle as weak as you can imagine, “Albarelli said. ” But it is a truck and it is great and other people love it. So this enthusiasm threatens other people, I think, sell vehicles. “
Albarelli, despite everything, bought a 1990 Honda Acty that belongs to a corporate to delay Japanese trees and driven through a small 660cc engine. You will have to press a knee in front of the guide column and its head is a few centimeters from the ceiling. The most sensible speed capable of coming from the 3 -cylinder engine is approximately 55 mph.
But the bed is about the same length as the 6. 5 feet popular bed in a new F-150.
“You’re going to tow a motorhouse,” said Albarelli, “you’re going to send a total gravel bed with him for your home. But the brush or everything you meet in House Depot or all the hardware will work.
Garnidated next to the Honda d’Ararelli there was some other Japanese truck, an ace in the city of Toyota from 1995 giant enough to be called a Kei truck but small to stand out in Colorado.
Albarelli can log in and download permanent dishes for the largest Toyota. The smallest sling, however, is stuck in a bureaucratic destination loop. He said he had titled it through his DMV workplace of the county without problems. But his local broadcasting workplace refused to review it, he said.
Albarelli has accelerated his defense work, publishing publications in a popular Facebook organization and chatting with bureaucrats and legislators. He even introduced a non -profit organization, Colorado Kei defends, admits that there has not been much work. He hopes that the Legislature legalizes cars so that it does not have to continue pressing other people to drive it.
“I need to have a win-win situation,” he said. “I agree that we have restrictions, but I also think we authorize those vehicles. “
Colorado legislators have already tried to legalize Kei vehicles. Falling invoices opposed through the Colorado Automobile Concessionaires Association and the Colorado State Patrol in 2015 and 2016.
The two teams refused to comment on Hinrichsen’s next bill. But Tim Jackson, former president and executive leader of the Colorado Automobile Distributors Association, said the arguments opposed to the legalization of Kei cars at the time of the State are added with two questions: pollutants and security.
“It establishes a two -level formula in emissions and safety, and I think it contradicts everything that Colorado as a state has tried to do,” said Jackson, referring to the other red efforts with the protection of the road and blank in the dirty air in the dirty air . Kei major trucks, adding the Albarelli Honda, lack fashion formulas such as fuel injection that reduces emissions.
The American Association of Motorized Vehicle Administrators, a national organization that represents and the lobs of motor vehicle directors and the application of the law, has fought against Kei cars throughout the country for years. The organization responded to several requests for comments. Two senior officials of the Colorado Motorized Vehicle Department and the state patrol are in the AAMVA Regional Council.
Colorado DMV also rejected an interview application. When asked why the DMV proposed, then explicitly prohibiting Kei trucks, spokeswoman Jennifer Giambi declared in an email that the rule “aimed to clarify the existing legislation with respect to vehicle classifications to consistency and a greater comprehension”.
“Kei cars have never been eligible for the name and ascending recording in Colorado,” Giambi wrote, added that the rule established because “it already covered through the existing statutes. “
Albarelli, however, disputes that the existing state law explicitly prohibits Kei vehicles, emphasizing that he could download transitional plates for his deep and that he only hung up in the emission verification process.
The State State pollution control division rejected an interview application, saying that it does comment on the proposed legislation. However, a spokesman said that the department “does not have an adequate verification procedure for this type of vehicle. “
Josh Juhasz, president of Revhard Motors, a Denver corridor specialized in Japanese models, said that a handful of Kei cars had imported for consumers who have controlled to register them in the counties where the emission tests are not necessary.
But, he said, state officials have turned the issuance procedure into a “brick wall” and discouraged possible consumers to buy Kei vehicles, at least for the moment.
“I don’t see any explanation why they are not legal,” he said.
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