The TINY CAR Problem(s)

Will Americans really be able to buy what Trump refers to as TINY CARS – i.e., the cars (and small pick-up trucks) that aren’t currently legal to sell in this country because they do not have federally-required “safety” equipment such  as multiple air bags or comply with other federal “safety” requirements, such as roof crush and side-impact “standards”?

Well, maybe. If Trump or Sean Duffy – the secretary of transportation – declare the requirements are no longer required. That would be on par with a declaration that paying income taxes is no longer required – and just as likely to happen. Keep in mind that Trump has not closed the Department of Transportation, which is the regulatory bureaucracy that has de facto legislative power – a “regulation” being functionally indistinguishable from a law. If the DOT (and subordinate bureaucracies such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) remain open for business, it means that whatever Trump (and Duffy) say today could be countermanded tomorrow. Or in January of 2029, when a new president will be elevated and a new transportation secretary appointed.

If the regulatory bureaucracies are still there, the power to regulate is still there. At best, Trump and Duffy may issue a temporary abatement. Even that is difficult to imagine because how could the federal government say that it’s safe to allow the sale of TINY CARS without the “safety” equipment (e.g., air bags) that larger (inherently safer) vehicles are still required to have? It would be like saying certain specially favored people are exempt from having to pay income taxes.

It may be Trump’s goal is to undermine the “safety” regs this way; i.e., to attack the very idea that any car must have air bags by granting an exemption for TINY CARS. The injustice – and ridiculousness – of this would perhaps arouse enough public opposition to the mandating of air bags for any cars. The mandating as such (i.e., the federal regulation in the FMVSS) would lose public support – in the manner of Prohibition – and be repealed.

Wouldn’t it be great? To have some freedom (to choose) again?

Ash-canning the air bag mandate would not outlaw air bags, it is important to say. Car companies would still be free to offer them as options and people who want them would be free to pay extra for them. That is the way it was, once and it ought to be that way again – assuming a free country. People are still free to not pay for gym memberships and free to not exercise, if that is their preference (as it ought to be). Health is surely just as important as safety. Yet most of us still accept the old fashioned idea that it’s our choice to decide to be healthier – or not. It ought to be our choice to decide whether to be safer, too.

Particularly when it is not “unsafe” to drive a car without air bags.

It might be riskier in a hypothetical sense. As in what might happen if you crash. But that is not the same as actually crashing – and a car without air bags is not more likely to crash just because it lacks air bags. This is a distinction many people do not understand – because it has been purposely conflated. Because it is much easier to get people to accept burdensome regulatory impositions when they are imposed for “safety.” More finely, it is more difficult to challenge such regs because the challenger will be derided as someone who is opposed to “safety.”

Anyhow, let’s say Trump (and Duffy) manage to even temporarily grant an air bag exemption – as well as exemptions from all the other federal “safety” regs in the FMVSS – for so-called TINY CARS. How likely is it that states will – pardon the language – cockblock those TINY CARS by declaring such cars cannot be registered/plated in their states because they are not compliant with state-level requirements?

As an example of how this might work against TINY CARS, there is no federal requirement that motorcycle riders wear a hemet, but many states require motorcycle riders to wear them.

What might happen, then – assuming the federal cockblocking actually goes away – is that only in certain states will it be viable to use TINY CARS. On public roads, that is. It is currently legal to drive whatever you like on your land – or other private land, assuming you have the owner’s permission. But the government owns the roads – and if the government says you have to register and plate your vehicle to use its roads, then so you must – in order to avoid it being confiscated by a government enforcer, if he sees you operating an unregistered/unplated vehicle on the government’s roads.

This is how many states could and probably will cockblock TINY CARS, even if they are legalized to sell under federal law. It is legal to buy off-road dirt bikes and side-by-sides and ATVs. But they are not legal in most state to use on the government’s roads.

Another distinction that makes all the difference.

So, for this to work – as a practical thing – Trump would have to “null and void” any state-level cockblocking that stands in the way of people being free to not just buy but to use – on public roads – TINY CARS.

That’s going to be a heavy lift. To put it mildly.

But maybe Trump has done enough already – by bringing up the subject. More finely, by getting a national-level discussion going about why it is that Americans are not able to buy or drive TINY CARS or for that matter any cars of their choosing.

Americans have been asleep for a long time. Maybe they are beginning to wake up.

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