You heard it from the source. GLENN TAYLOR !UPDATE!

[Stinky_1]

once someone puts a form letter together maybe someone could post it up here? That way we could copy and paste it into an email and send it off with our names to whoever we think will listen

[jhmed]

the only way to get a proper study done is get it done by a completely independant and unbiased party, and that is not going to happen any time soon. If you look at the study the government has done you can read all kinds of different views into it, ranging from age of drivers to alcohol related incidents. the study is inconclusive to say the least and lacking a comparable study group for which they can compare rhd to lhd. they need to find similar age drivers with, similar driveing records etc, simalr areas, rural or city, similar number of miles driven per day. you cant compare a young male 20 years old driving a skyline gtr in the city to a 45 year old woman living in small town BC. of course the skyline is going to look unsafe, but they dont mention the 20 year old could be driving a left hand drive corvette and have the same record, its not the fact that the rhd is unsafe its the driver of said veh is unsafe.

I agree the Transport Canada study is full of holes. And you're right, a second study would take too long to complete and would likely be too expensive for small-timers like us to have conducted for us. BUT, there has to be existing studies from other countries we can use to our benefit. Transport Canada will surely be looking to other nations to prove their case. Let's use our collective resources to prove ours using the same method.

I am awaiting contact from a representative from New Zealand, a country that legally allows LHD vehicles in their RHD oriented roads. Her name is Barbara Bibby and she is Senior Policy Analyst, Policy and Planning Vehicles section of Land Transport New Zealand. I want to speak to her regarding the issue we face today. I intend to gather more information that can be used to help this fight. I have contacted an independent company in the UK who does accident report studies and am currently looking for French-speaking or German-speaking individuals to assist in searches in those languages since France and Germany are both LHD oriented countries with RHD ones all around them. If RHDs were a problem on their roads they'd have surely done their own studies long ago.

I'm not suggesting we make our own study... we'd be laughed at. But, maybe what we can do, since their argument mentioned 'field of view' is find some owners of JDM Surfs (4Runners) and CDM 4Runners of similar ride-height and equipped similarly, and take pictures of the same intersections on the same day under similar traffic conditions to illustrate the difference in FOV is minimal.

Start a letter-writing campaign to your local MLA. Get relatives in other parts of the country/province to do the same with their MLAs. ih8mud.com has a form letter that they're developing... Get them to sign the form-letter or write the letter FOR them so they will sign and mail it off yourself. Do whatever it takes.

[E34 M5]

the only way to get a proper study done is get it done by a completely independant and unbiased party, and that is not going to happen any time soon. If you look at the study the government has done you can read all kinds of different views into it, ranging from age of drivers to alcohol related incidents. the study is inconclusive to say the least and lacking a comparable study group for which they can compare rhd to lhd. they need to find similar age drivers with, similar driveing records etc, simalr areas, rural or city, similar number of miles driven per day. you cant compare a young male 20 years old driving a skyline gtr in the city to a 45 year old woman living in small town BC. of course the skyline is going to look unsafe, but they dont mention the 20 year old could be driving a left hand drive corvette and have the same record, its not the fact that the rhd is unsafe its the driver of said veh is unsafe.

[jhmed]

I understand about the bc wanting you to comply but as rock bought up is it law? that is what counts, that is what holds up in court. the bc motor vehicle dept can jump up and down to its hearts content if its not law there is very little they can do about it, and I personnally would like to see the law in wrinting, bcmvd hasnt been able to do that. also I am not being beligerant and please dont refer to peoples opinion as ignorant when they have a valid point

Personally, I think attacking that route now is not a good idea. Now, we have to prove that the RHD are not as big a safety concern as they believe them to be. It may even hurt our credibilty with public opinion if it is spun to the media that we want to challenge (or have challenged) the safety requirements of the province. It may make it look like we believe they won't pass, and are trying to hide something...

Later, if you'd like to investigate that avenue of legalities then fine. We need 100% of everyone's attention to remained focussed on the task at hand: how can we provide rock (no pun intended) solid evidence that the very nature of RHD vehicles (driver orientation) is not dangerous in itself.

We are under a time-constraint here with the 'safety' issue of RHDs because no one knows just when the hammer will fall and the 25 year rule will be put into place.

We have a wee bit more time to worry about inspections.

[jhmed]

I understand about the bc wanting you to comply but as rock bought up is it law? that is what counts, that is what holds up in court. the bc motor vehicle dept can jump up and down to its hearts content if its not law there is very little they can do about it, and I personnally would like to see the law in wrinting, bcmvd hasnt been able to do that. also I am not being beligerant and please dont refer to peoples opinion as ignorant when they have a valid point

Ignorance 1) is a lack of knowledge. Ignorance is also a "state of being ignorant" or unaware/uninformed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignorance

Seems to apply to this thread.


bel·lig·er·ence (bə-lĭj'ər-əns)
n.
A hostile or warlike attitude, nature, or inclination; belligerency.

http://www.answers.com/topic/belligerence

Also seems to apply to this thread.



Also, I wasn't refering to any one member in particular. If I were, I am certainly not afraid to voice it, but I would probably do it in a PM. I don't need you to take my posts out of context and try and put words in my mouth....

I can get into more than enough trouble on my own, thank you.

[E34 M5]

I understand about the bc wanting you to comply but as rock bought up is it law? that is what counts, that is what holds up in court. the bc motor vehicle dept can jump up and down to its hearts content if its not law there is very little they can do about it, and I personnally would like to see the law in wrinting, bcmvd hasnt been able to do that. also I am not being beligerant and please dont refer to peoples opinion as ignorant when they have a valid point

[Stinky_1]

from what I gather about this.....

Our cars are exempt from the CMVSS because they have to either

a) Comply to the rules

or

b) be 15 years old or older and as such do not need to comply.


The problem arises that you DO HAVE TO COMPLY to your provincial rules. The rules are generally whatever it takes to pass your OOP. In the case of BC, instead of writing everything from scratch they took the CMVSS and copied and pasted it into the BC gov inspeciton manual. So in BC you DO NOT HAVE to comply with CMVSS, but you DO HAVE TO comply to the BC inspection manual. Since it is derived from the CMVSS then essentially you do have to comply with at least part of the CMVSS.

Now my question is this though.......... what about the Alberta cars? Is it in out manual to have DOT headlights? or just be aimed correctly? What about other provinces in general?

It seems BC does not like the cars, and as such they are trying to pressure transport canada into changing the part that says 15 year old cars need nod comply with CMVSS. So instead it would read

".........

or

b) be 25 years old or older not required to meet CMVSS"

[jhmed]

Once again, ignorance and belligerence has ruined another thread.

[E34 M5]

I am with Rock, i want to see the law in writing. if the BC gov inspeciton manual is law then prove it. My brother in law is a lawyer, i explained the situation to him and he said he would be more than happy to look over the documents. that being the case, he said the bc government as well as any other province can make up thier own laws, but most likely they would follow the laws and rules set out by the canadian department of transportation, and i quote they state all vehicles 15 year old or older imported into canada are exempt. cant be more cut and dried than that.

[Lox]

Thanks to GT for taking the time to let us know why skylines shouldn't pass and what needs to be changed to let them pass inspection. Sorry to hear personal attacks were made towards you.

I think what we really need at this point is a detailed account of HOW to make the modifications in a way that would satisfy safety standards and of course allow owners to pass the inspection legally and not just because someone didn't do their job.

I'm sure a lot less people would care to argue why the requirements are what they are IF they knew HOW to do what needed to be done to meet those requirements.

The headlight issue seems to be the most difficult to meet and an explanation that you need DOT approved equivalent shape/size headlights is good to know, but we need to know HOW to get that. The only hint we have is getting the DOT approved headlight passed by an engineer (as I understand it) but what is actually involved in this?

[Caithness]

Paradis, since you are fully aware and acknowledge in writing that your vehicle passed inspection illegally I think you should volunteer to be re-inspected because it is the right and lawful thing to do. Maybe GT could inspect it for you? or recommend a shop that will do it properly? You will have to figure out for yourself how to best modify your vehicle to meet the specifics of the BCMVA. Just don't ask for help from rockcrete because he is just such a jerk for trying to get those exact issues nailed down....

Would you have every single Skyline re-inspected then?

Rockcrete was voicing his frustrations with the way things are.

I agree with him, many ppl here agree with him, I'm sure Glen agree's with him...

...a little light is a little light, the amount of time and money that could be put to better use...I mean go after drunk drivers with the extra coin.

...Unfortunately that's not the case at hand and unfortunately we are in a complete fix as technically every single Skyline on B.C. roads is wrong...

...and in need of a new inspection...so that it can be failed.

...we need to concern ourselves with "how" we arwe going to address this...not fight that it isn't "right".

I guess sort and simple we need to think -What's more important, being right...

...or doing the right thing.

[rockcrete]

I would also like to add, I currently am not stuck with a failed inspection, I just want a legitimate standard for everyone so that nobody can say we are "unsafe" and just to add, I DID NOT email GT, but I have emailed various ministers and MLA's / MP's

[psilosin]

GT: Sorry that it has come to people sending personal attacks to your personal email. Thats WAY over the line and not fair to you as an individual.

That said, I can't say you are surprised though. This thread has gone just like the one on ih8mud last year. Many of your responses have a definate mocking tone to them...some constructive content but mainly only negative content framed in a way as to provoke a hostile response from people who have an opposing point of view. I think you enjoy it too (as long as it stays on the forum) and I think rockcrete is your trophy catch this time around...he took the bait and blew his top. Now that you got your big fish its time to move on...

I don't think people should be coming down on rockcrete either. He might have blown his cool (understandably) but that doesn't take away from the many points he makes. He has also contributed a lot to your group in previous posts.

Paradis, since you are fully aware and acknowledge in writing that your vehicle passed inspection illegally I think you should volunteer to be re-inspected because it is the right and lawful thing to do. Maybe GT could inspect it for you? or recommend a shop that will do it properly? You will have to figure out for yourself how to best modify your vehicle to meet the specifics of the BCMVA. Just don't ask for help from rockcrete because he is just such a jerk for trying to get those exact issues nailed down....

[Stinky_1]

besides if we want to effect change I dont think GT is the way to go. He was fine for info, and we can all see what the thought process is in the government now. (or re-affirmed how it is for some of us).

It all comes down to nobody wants to say anything that they are not sure enough about. So I am sure in Glenns case he certainly did not want to go out and say "yeah, rockcrete what you are saying is correct and if I was you guys that is the route I would take".

He cant say that. He has his memo from his boss, and it says "when asked about XXXXXX the correct answer is blah blah blah"

So he can only keep repeating that memo until he gets a new updated one.

So now its time to figure out who we do need to talk to. Personally I think its not one person we need to talk to because whoever is heading the whole initiative has already made up his mind. We need to be changing the minds of the people who have NOT made up their minds....

We need to talk to our own MLA, we also need to drive public awareness. I am not sure how this will work the best. But I was thinking I would get a rear window banner made up of some sort. Have it say "SAVE JDM Right Hand Drive...... ask me how" or put a phone number or somethig. If there was a VERY easy to remember web site made, where people could sign their name and address on, kind of like a partition, then we could send them there.

I think at this point public awarenes is what will help us. Maybe organize picknicks or something where everyone gets a hot dog and pop for $1.00 if they sign a peice of paper.

I have been told that political leaders think of one email as being the opinion of 1000 people. SO even if we have people sending emails to whoever then it will help.

[dah_hunter]

I personaly Think rockcrete, is a great guy. i never never met him. but he realy knows his stuff..

I ahve looked into a some stuff.. and i always end up with the same info he has already said..

as for GT..

Whatever.. the guy cant realy help us anyways.. Like many people ahve said.. He's a low guy on the pole.. he cant do anything.. aside for tell us what we already know he's going to say..

Anyways.. This was a good thread.. but it ended up being a broken record..