Q: My neighbor has been driving a tiny pickup that doesn’t have a license plate. It looks like the kind of truck you’d see driving around inside a factory. I don’t think he has a driver license. Is it legal to drive those on public roads?
A: I’m going to change your question a little bit to make this easier. The answer to your question is, “It depends.” Let’s reframe it as, “Is it legal for my neighbor to drive his vehicle on public roads?” And the easy answer is, “Almost certainly no.”
You might occasionally see a tiny truck on the road. These are usually imported from Japan and called kei (short for keijidōsha – Japanese for light vehicle) trucks. Because they were never built for the US market, they don’t meet the federal safety standards for motor vehicles, and it’s not legal to register a vehicle that doesn’t meet US safety standards for use on public roads.
However, there’s a loophole, and it’s a big one. A vehicle that is at least 25 years old does not have to comply with federal safety standards. Vehicle importing is beyond the scope of this column but, as evidenced by seeing them on the road with a license plate and tabs, a kei truck can be registered in Washington. That’s not true in every state, and as safety concerns increase, so are the number of states that won’t allow these trucks (and kei cars) on public roads. For example, our neighbor to the south, Oregon will only permit them to be titled as an off-road vehicle.
But we’re talking about your neighbor. And the law states, “It is unlawful for a person to operate any vehicle on a public highway of this state without having in full force and effect a current and proper vehicle registration and displaying license plates on the vehicle.” If it’s not registered, it’s not legal.
There could be an exception if you happen to live in a community with a golf cart zone and the vehicle he’s driving is an actual golf cart. The law defines a golf cart, in part, as a “vehicle originally designed and manufactured for operation on a golf course.” You can’t just call any little golf-cart-sized vehicle a golf cart.
Even then, your neighbor might not be driving legally. You mentioned that you don’t think he has a driver license. If it was revoked, that’s a problem. Golf carts are an exception to the driver license requirement. However, the golf cart zone law prohibits a person with a revoked license from driving a golf cart on the road, even in a golf cart zone.
While we’re on the topic, allow me a bit of crash data nerdiness to affirm why unlicensed drivers shouldn’t be driving. The crashes tell a story, and it’s not a great ending for unlicensed drivers (or the other drivers they encounter). So here we go:
- About five percent of drivers in Washington are unlicensed, but unlicensed drivers cause ten percent of all fatal crashes.
- In multi-vehicle crashes involving unlicensed drivers, the unlicensed drivers are at fault 58 percent of the time while licensed drivers are at fault only 14 percent of the time.
- Unlicensed drivers are involved in impaired driving and speeding fatal crashes at twice the rate of licensed drivers.
- Unlicensed drivers in a fatal crash are three times more likely to have been arrested for impaired driving than licensed drivers.
I could go on. My point here is there’s a good reason why some people aren’t allowed to drive.