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Originally Posted by hulkrogan
While I appreciate your point that Japanese and Euro safety standards should be pretty good, they are still made for the roads in those countries, not ours. Obviously RHD isn't as safe as LHD in Canada. I don't think I need to argue that one.
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Nope. I'll entertain an argument about the RHD. It's definitely not my preference, and I don't see myself driving any 'wrong-hand drives' in my life deliberately. I believe that they can be more unsafe, and it all depends on the driver. It's not ideal, but as a driver, you should know that you should exercise the most extreme caution when passing, and use patience when turning left, regardless of any road-rager that may be behind you.
The unfortunate part is, the demographic buying many of these cars, aren't the best drivers for that application. I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers were sort of bad, but I believe that if those same kids were driving domestically available cars, they'd be just as likely to get into a stupid crash.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hulkrogan
As for your V6 Clio, Europe is a place that isn't crawling with pickup trucks. Bumper heights are different, highway barricade standards are different, traffic light heights are different, sign heights, road compounds, all of it. There are just too many factors to blindly trust the safety standards of many countries besides the US.
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Heard this one before. The biggest problem here would be pickup trucks, but no small car you can buy here will fare well against them. As far as all of the other different stuff, I've never heard of anybody in Europe preventing importation of North American cars, citing anything of that sort. They have you retrofit the lighting to EU standards, and that's about it.
I believe that the only reason they have any laws to prevent importing of foreign vehicles is because the car companies want to make more money. Ultimately, it's a very similar argument that comes up here often concerning the CRTC, and their sim-subbing of Superbowl commercials, and various blackouts for various reasons. An organization paid for by our tax dollars, exists only to force us to spend more money, by making it illegal for us to go elsewhere with our business.
If they were to allow any EU approved cars in Canada, even if they threw a LHD only rule on it, I don't imagine that any safety issues would arise. This is a RHD only problem that exists (and the government is exaggerating), yet they're attempting to ban all imports newer than 25 years old as a result. That's wrong.