Skirting the law
There are a few ways of skirting the law to get an RHD into your hands in Canada that would otherwise be impossible. This isn't supposed to be a tutorial on how to skirt the law, but as a way of avoiding accidentally getting one that has been illegally (or legally-grey so the legality is questionable) put on the roads.
How people illegally register RHDs that aren't 15+ years old
The VIN number swap - this one is pretty obvious and the most common. Buy two cars, one legal LHD and one illegal RHD. Say you did a right hand drive conversion... take the VIN off the LHD, put it on the RHD. Done. This is called 'VIN Fraud', and is illegal. If you do a proper RHD conversion..... it's... well... it's complicated. That topic will come up later when I know more about the legal side of it. Buyer beware of these if you're in the market.
Insuring as a different car - "Yeah, it's uhhh... a Nissan Sentra......." Yeah right. This is about as legal as swapping VINs. You're insuring one car as another. If you get in an accident you might not be covered by insurance.
Not actually importing the car officially - The registrar of imported vehicles won't give you the paperwork to insure your fancy RHD that just came off the boat. You have it as a shiny paperweight on your driveway. Well, you can find plates for it somewhere and just drive it! Yeah, that means you're driving without insurance.
Have the car insured somewhere legally and drive it in Canada - Now you're getting clever. This is possibly legal, depending on your insurer. Most insurers require the vehicle and owner be in the province/country/state/place where the vehicle is insured for some amount of time per year. So, again, if you're not smart you're driving without insurance.
Illegal stuff on Legal RHDs
JIS logo you may see on your car
This can happen too, and you need to protect yourself from it.
Compliance - I talked a little about this last week, and still implore you to go to ivoac.ca if you have compliance questions. I've heard of a lot to bad stuff going on here. Not all provinces will accept JIS (Japanese equivalent of DOT) as acceptable parts for cars. This really affects headlights, seatbelts and taillights. Some people that can't find a good DOT replacement stamp DOT onto the non-DOT stuff, or in the case of seatbelts, will sew on DOT tags from a different car. Clever, yes.... highly illegal? Yes. Adding fraud to a list of offenses.... not clever.
Aftermarket mods - This is a common problem for any car, not just RHDs. People like shiny things that just aren't legal. Tires that stick out further than the fenders, taking off catalytic converters, not street legal tires (racing or offroad).... the list goes on. Any old codger car buff can tell you all the stuff that he's done to cars that's illegal.
In Conclusion
The new JIS logo, as of 2008
Ok, so what does it matter that you're driving without insurance. Other than the fact it's illegal, if you get in an accident you are liable to pay all the bills even if the accident wasn't your fault. If you wrecked someone else's car.... you're buying them a new one. If you maim someone, you're paying their wage for the rest of their life. Well, it might not be quite that bad, but it's not inconceivable.
You're allowed to love and want an RHD, but don't bring the RHD name down by being an idiot.
rob
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