Reversing the Massachusetts JDM Imports Ban - WE WON! - SEP 18 2024
September 18, 2024:
We WON!
22 of us showed up to the MassDOT Board of Directors meeting. They announced the reversal of the ban yet still kinda leaving a foot in the door about still wanting to do a study on the safety of them being on the roads here. We want to get HD 5357 passed to take this matter out of the RMV’s hands because they still can one day down the line decide to ban stuff again just like they did the first time.
Congrats and thank you to all that participated in making this happen by contacting the state legislature, governor, RMV staff and all the media agencies that took interest in this.
Representative Steve Howitt is the best car guy we have in the state legislature. He filed HD 5357 and we want to contact all the other representatives across the state to support this bill. It is a very simple bill that codifies that 25+ year old vehicles shall be registered by the RMV and that any foreign imports would be included too as long as they met their origin country’s safety standards (as all road going cars would be)
Stay tuned for when the bill goes to hearing at the state house and try to make a day to visit the city again in the middle of the day on a random day of the week to show your support for said bill. I will update and announce this later on when it is known.
THANK YOU EVERYBODY
September 17, 2024:
WE WON!!! (kinda, there’s more…)
We were planning on going to the meeting tomorrow September 18, 2024 12:00 PM MassDOT Board of Directors meeting at 10 Park Plaza, Boston MA 2nd Floor Board Room.
But then we heard the good news! The MA RMV has decided to do a 180 and declared a full reversal of the ban they started 3 months ago.
This entire time I didn’t really have much hope but pushing on, learning new things doing this activism plus meeting tons of new people from this car culture was an awesome experience. Ending up with the desired result surprised me and is awesome because we stood up against the government doing something we didn’t like and we won. Not really a common thing to have happen but I am happy to have been a part of this journey. I have met a lot of new friends and learned a lot of stuff within the community. I would love to partake in another adventure again when I get the chance.
Now yes, we won. There still needs to be more to this. The RMV still has the ability to one day turn around and do this again either to these JDM/kei vehicles or any other vehicle. They still have MGL Chapter 90 Section 2 (paraphrasing here) “to be able to deny/revoke any registration at anytime for any reason.” We want to codify the legalization of our imported vehicles for all 25+ federally exempted vehicles. We still want the state legislature to pass HD 5357 to prevent the RMV from being able to reject these vehicles the way they did.
Please continue to contact your legislators about this bill and thank them for their assistance in pressuring the RMV to reverse course for immediate relief. It should be the legislators that decide what to ban not on a whim of some RMV bureaucrat.
I now I have edit my speech I was going to read at the board meeting and will post that update after.
We have Boston Kei Party stickers to hand out to people that have reached out to reps. Please cc bostonkeiparty@gmail.com in your communications to your reps to support this bill and provide your mailing address to receive your sticker! (You may also buy them too. Proceeds go towards the production and design of the sticker)
THANK YOU EVERYBODY FOR YOUR WORK AND SUPPORT!!!
Announcement release from MassDOT for the RMV
Huge turn around for our cause of protecting 25+ year grey market imports.
September 10, 2024:
SAVE THE DATE: September 18, 2024 12:00 PM MassDOT Board of Directors meeting at 10 Park Plaza, Boston MA 2nd Floor Board Room.
A bill was filed by Representative Steve Howitt (4th Bristol) H.D. 5357. https://malegislature.gov/Bills/193/HD5357
This defines what a kei vehicle is into MA law, references Federal motor vehicle safety standards are federally into MA law and tells the RMV to shall issue registrations to any vehicle 25 years or older and imported vehicles that originally met the safety standards of the origin country, and what was defined as kei cars.
This is very good to have to try to push through. It is a simple bill and is a simple win for the legislature and MA residents should reach out to the legislators to tell them to support this bill HD 5357. It would be great to get this passed in the informal session now to fix this wrong the RMV caused and to prevent any future issues regarding these vehicles.
August 20, 2024:
SAVE THE DATE: September 18, 2024 12:00 PM MassDOT Board of Directors meeting at 10 Park Plaza, Boston MA 2nd Floor Board Room.
There have been reports of non kei vehicles being both denied or registered through the RMV since the last update. It is certainly a human factor of the RMV clerk receiving bringing Japanese export certificate and either not knowing what to do with it and having a supervisor reject it or understanding what it is and if it isn’t one of the kei trucks/vans and processing it.
I attempted to register 6 fresh JDM imports today and I was denied on all of them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqsCy8dqwgY
None of them were kei trucks or vans. The vehicles were a Toyota Dyna, Honda Z, Suzuki Wagon R Wide, Suzuki Jimny, Daihatsu Mira TRXX, and another Daihatsu Mira TRXX.
They seem to have dropped the short vin reasoning and went with “Manufacturer not registered with the NHTSA” Yea ok I get it if you tried to play that with the Daihatsu but Toyota and Honda not registered with the NHTSA? Ha.
A couple days later in the Facebook group Massachusetts JDM Imports Advocates someone reported attempting to register a 1997 BMW 5 Series imported from Japan. This has a full 17 digit VIN (seemingly not relevant anymore). This registration was attempted through a dealer and was also denied. The reasoning is that it’s unsafe because Boston said so LOL. See denial below. It seems like the common denominator is a grey market import of Japanese origin. I have a few people I am waiting for an update on their European grey market car of European origin to report their results.
July 20, 2024:
SAVE THE DATE: September 18, 2024 12:00 PM MassDOT Board of Directors meeting at 10 Park Plaza, Boston MA 2nd Floor Board Room.
A bunch of us went to the MassDOT Board of Directors meeting on July 17, 2024 at 12pm at 10 Park Plaza, Boston MA. The meeting is hosted in the Board Room on the 2nd floor.
Those of us present for the public comment section spoke out in favor of our vehicles and that the RMV should reconsider what they have done and undo the ban.
There were 30 voicemails and unfortunately they only played one of them as they deemed that “they are all essentially the same”, no emails were read either but we were told every director got a copy of all the emails.
You can see the live stream replay here: https://livestream.com/accounts/20617794/events/11157165
The real issue here is the the RMV is using this law in Massachusetts to enact this ban all by themselves.
MGL Chapter 90, Section 2 states, in part:
“If the registrar shall determine at any time that, for any reason, a motor vehicle or trailer is unsafe or improperly equipped or otherwise unfit to be operated, he may refuse to register such motor vehicle or trailer or, if it is already registered, may suspend or revoke its registration.”
This law is very vague and can easily be used against any vehicle they choose to do so. It gives the Registrar the ultimate power to allow or deny anything they want FOR ANY REASON.
However they have updated their website here: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/vehicles-that-cannot-be-registeredtitled-in-massachusetts
With the new text: The RMV is currently reviewing its policies for registration of Kei trucks. All existing unexpired registrations for Kei trucks and vans will remain active as the RMV works to review and assess industry standards related to Kei mini trucks and develop an updated policy addressing the registration of these vehicles.
It seems like our messages to either the State Legislature and or the MassDOT Directors have had some effect for them to update this page with this new info. We must continue to keep the pressure on to our minimum best case scenario, going back to the status quo. RMV goes back to allowing and collecting the funds they get from us and we go back to enjoying our vehicles. It is the easiest path for all of us.
We need to help the RMV to understand that the piece of info they are using against our Japanese keijidosha (kei) trucks and vans does not apply to our vehicles as it was written for a class of vehicle called “mini trucks” like the Tiger trucks. People often interchange the word “mini truck” with “kei truck”. The Tiger trucks look like kei trucks only in shape but they are meant to be off road only use vehicles and are limited to 25mph. Kei trucks/vans/cars were meant to be on road vehicles from the start and are manufactured to meet said safety standards of the time on road in Japan. People can also import vehicles that are less than 25 years old however they would not qualify for the exemption of the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and would be subject to off road use only. If one were to bring in a kei truck younger than 25 years, the EPA and NHTSA wouldn’t pass it through customs the same. They would also need to be limited to 25mph max as this would be forcing it to be a “mini truck" as per the EPA.
The RMV is misguided in believing that these vehicles were meant for off road use (probably because of the 25 or older year exemption and the distinction between “mini trucks” and trucks that look like them but are exempt thus applying the wrong logic to them.
June 26, 2024:
I have not heard anything useful back from the state representatives or senators yet. I have reached out to the MA Transportation Joint Committee and SEMA in regards the current situation too.
Here’s the new RMV internal training document we acquired
June 21, 2024:
Recently I have found that the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) has decided they do not want to register short VIN Japanese import vehicles anymore. Claimed to be coming from their legal department that they do not meet Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) and they identify them by vehicles of Japanese origin with a short VIN (less than 17 characters)
This mean’s there’s scrutiny on all JDM import vehicles brought in with the 25 year NHTSA rule because they all have a short vin.
Here is a nice article written by Mercedes Streeter after she investigated further into this for The Autopian: https://www.theautopian.com/massachusetts-is-banning-cars-from-japan-without-telling-enthusiasts-why/
I am going to be covering updates to my situation with these since I am well into this with my current fleet of random JDM stuff both here and incoming. Subscribe to my Youtube channel: Anything Wheeled for updates there too.
Below is a template for reaching out to MA State Legislators, you can find the legislator’s emails and phone numbers here: https://malegislature.gov/Legislators and your specific ones here: https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator I am contacting them all by phone and email. You may do so too. Remember please be nice, they didn’t do this and you want them to be on our side.
You can use this template below, personalize it as you need or use as is after replacing in their names and your name.
———————
Dear <<ENTER STATE REP NAME>>,
I am <<ENTER YOUR NAME>>, a car enthusiast who enjoys importing and driving vehicles from around the world, particularly those from Japan that are at least 25 years old. I am reaching out as part of a group of car and business owners regarding this topic.
I am writing to you regarding a recent policy change at the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV). The RMV website outlines a set of documents required to register a vehicle imported from countries other than Canada, and people have been successfully registering vehicles using this process for many years. However, when I recently attempted to register an imported vehicle, I was informed that due to a policy change, these vehicles are no longer eligible for registration/titling because they do not meet the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) due to having a short Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) (less than 17 characters). The RMV clerks, supervisors, and managers state that this change is happening under the direction of the RMV Title Department (857-368-8050). It is important to note that vehicles imported when they are 25 years or older are exempt from FMVSS and are fully legal to be brought into the US for use on public roads. The RMV may be confusing these vehicles with "mini trucks," which are newer vehicles that do not meet FMVSS and EPA regulations if imported when less than 25 years old. The RMV appears to be targeting all vehicles with short VINs, which is difficult to understand since even some US vehicles manufactured before 1981 had short VINs. The RMV is quoting FMVSS as their metric for this action, but this class of vehicle is exempt, thus making this change illogical.
This action is detrimental to regular people in Massachusetts. The RMV is changing the rules without warning, causing harm to individuals by devaluing their property (the vehicles) and negatively impacting small business owners who legally import vehicles for sale and service their customers' cars. People whose livelihoods depend on these imported vehicles are effectively being put out of business in Massachusetts by this action, as they are no longer able to title vehicles for sale or even sell to Massachusetts customers.
I am requesting your assistance in reaching out to the appropriate RMV administrators or other relevant parties to explain that these imported vehicles are valid for registration, as they have been in the past, and that revoking and denying registration is an inappropriate action.
Furthermore, I am asking that you propose new legislation that would codify the legal status of these imported vehicles or all vehicles with a short VIN, if applicable. This way, the law would be clear and unambiguous, preventing any confusion or inconsistency in the future.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
<<YOUR NAME>> <<WARD/DISTRICT/ETC IF APPLICABLE>>