[nateberkopec]

All your points about 25-year-old safety standards is perfectly valid.

However, re: "crumple zones":

The streets of the USA are basically an arms race. Bigger and bigger and bigger because "it's safer". Safer for you, maybe. This is how we ended up with pickup trucks that have hoods as high as your shoulders.

Kei trucks and cars are great, and in Japan they're quite safe (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24499113/) but the context is completely different. Cars weigh half as much, the drivers are twice as careful and traveling at half the speed.

[skhr0680]

I can remember at least one instance this year where an entire family died from when their Kei car got rolled over in what would have been a survivable accident in a vehicle built to full size safety standards.

Kei cars are popular because they’re cheap to run and small, but they are a tin can on wheels.