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Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

This seems like a weird way of US states attempting to enforce their own local interpretation of federal laws and not laws that actually exist as state code. Anything that's over 25 years old is specifically exempt from federal FMVSS. If it's under 25 years old you can't legally import it anyways for use on US roads (with title, etc).

People do import <25 year old kei type vehicles for use exclusively on private property on large ranches and such.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Motor_Vehicle_Safety_S...

google "usa 25 year import car rule".

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=USA+25+ye...

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States are not required to register cars just because the federal government allows them to be imported or sold. They can add requirements consistent with their own laws, as California infamously does causing 49-state cars and parts.

Whether categorically blocking kei car registrations is consistent with the laws of some of the states doing it is a question in some ongoing lawsuits, though.

Different US states' very unique interpretation of laws on certain things is something I have seen that needs explanation to foreign visitors and people who immigrate, from countries where there is one consistent legal code and regulation system of various products at the national level...

Marijuana regulations and firearms (and limitations of different types of firearms) are two obvious examples. Other things like per-state family leave laws for employees, employment law, landlord tenant law as well.

> Different US states' very unique interpretation of laws on certain things is something I have seen that needs explanation

Definitely! Especially here on HN. A lot of the questions & criticisms I see from people outside the US likely stem from ignorance about how the government of US is constructed. The states really are very powerful, even ~250 years into the experiment.

>The states really are very powerful, even ~250 years into the experiment.

And in fact, the states hold absolute power over the federal government because the Constitution can be amended by a two-thirds majority of the states. Absolutely noone in the federal government, including Congress and the Supreme Court, can get in their way because the federal government derives their power from the states.

The only entity that the states answer to is the people, from whom the states derive their powers.

2/3 of states required to call a convention, 3/4 of the convention (which includes the states that show up, not just the callers) to amend the constitution.

Or 2/3 majority of both houses to propose and 3/4 of state legislatures to ratify amendments.

It would appear I had remembered the wrong specific number, so thanks for that refresher!

https://nonasuch.tumblr.com/post/616921709864468480/do-non-a...

“Do non-americans realize that the United States is literally just a bunch of countries in a trench coat that agreed to be semi-nice to each other in order to sneak into the Big Boy Club? Because let’s be honest that’s just what the USA is”

"a bunch of countries in a trench coat that agreed to be semi-nice to each other in order to sneak into the Big Boy Club"

Well the US was hardly the first to take that approach!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countries_of_the_United_Kingdo...

However, I would point that here in the UK I suspect most people are actually completely unaware of the fact that there are multiple legal and education systems in our "country of countries".

one wonders who we learned it from!

Don't forget alcohol! Widely different regulations, sometimes county to county. Some states only allow liquor stores to sell spirits, some only allow hard alcohol sales on Sunday mornings, some counties allow no alcohol sales before noon on Sundays, other counties outright ban the sale of alcohol, others enable drive through liquor pickup, on and on.

> Different US states' very unique interpretation of laws on certain things is something I have seen that needs explanation to foreign visitors and people who immigrate,

Your examples are actually different state laws, not different “unique” interpretations of laws, which is a pretty big mistake for someone who talks about needing to explain the situation to others.

I think it's clear that I meant different interpretations (politically) at a state level of what law should be written and implemented on certain things or activities.

This is mainly a federal distinction though.

IIRC some federal countries like Canada or India have even greater variance between states.

Canada has one unified criminal code nation wide. For instance a province can't make weed legal or enact laws banning certain guns that are ok in others. The weird regional variations in Canada are like, ICBC as monopoly car registration + vehicle liability insurance in BC. Quebec language laws are another weird regional thing.

Canada has heavier restrictions on interstate/provincial commerce, including the fact that it is generally illegal to bring alcohol between provinces: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Free_Trade_Agreemen...

Road legal is entirely a state thing. The federal law is all about what is legal to import or offer for sale.

A different example would be emissions testing. Good ol' Michigan doesn't do it, so if you are moving to another state that does do it, it pays to think about whether your vehicle is going to pass.

It's bonkers how many laws there are against perfectly ordinary and normal things like importing cars in the Land of the "Free".

In the UK you basically just need it to have some form of braking system and nothing likely to slice open or skewer pedestrians as you drive past, and be able to insure it.

That's one reason why the UK is considered DIY vehicle heaven. And also why it is very much a pity that it dropped out of the EU because that gave a neat little loophole for a while.

There's a lot of reasons it's a pity it dropped out of the EU, but one upside is that it gives us room to rejoin as a proper member, using the Euro, in Schengen, etc.

Or, maybe just Scotland and NI, and Wales and England can become independent.

> There's a lot of reasons it's a pity it dropped out of the EU

Yes, sorry I did not mean to give the impression that that was a major thing, just one more item that I've seen people use in creative ways. But obviously it's just a tiny footnote in a much, much larger tragedy.

> but one upside is that it gives us room to rejoin as a proper member, using the Euro, in Schengen, etc.

Can't wait.

> Or, maybe just Scotland and NI, and Wales and England can become independent.

England will put up a ton of resistance before allowing that to happen.

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