Southern Africa is where all the used Japanese vehicles go to die.

[randomness]

I've seen a remarkable number of vans, minibuses, and trucks with Japanese writing on them here in Zambia, and to a lesser extent in Mozambique.

It makes sense, as both Japan and Southern Africa drive on the left side of the road, but it is surreal to see an Isuzu truck with the markings from some Japanese delivery company written in kanji and hiragana on the side, bouncing on down a dusty side street in Livingstone, Zambia.

I'm told the strict Japanese vehicle inspection regime gets harder and harder to pass as vehicles age. I'm sure an intended side-effect is to force people to buy new cars. Perhaps an unintended one is to create a huge supply of somewhat used left-hand drive vehicles at low prices. I imagine some middleman is making a killing selling all these Japanese vehicles down here in Africa.

Comments

Theory Behind it

[mryt-maat.livejournal.com]

Not to be insufficiently cynical here, but rigorous inspection and emissions standards are really good for the public health. Asthma is up in the US because of our lax air quality policies- and large part of that is vehicle exhaust. The Japanese have even more people crammed in per square mile yet manage to maintain a fair level of general health partly due to "global" prevention methods like this. When the government is paying for your health care, it cares a lot more about root causes and eliminating them.