Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) were established as a separate class of vehicles by the U.S. Department of Transportation in 1998. They were originally designed for short shopping trips and social and recreational use. In July 2000, the NEV class was created in Canada. Canada's NEV class was created to allow companies to make, import and sell these small, lightweight limited purpose vehicles that could not meet the safety standards applied to larger and heavier mainstream vehicles that operate on public roads.
While provinces and territories regulate public road use and vehicle and driver licensing, Transport Canada does not encourage the use of NEVs on public roads, since they are not required to provide the same level of safety as mainstream vehicles.
Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) are not required to satisfy highway capable standards (mainstream vehicles) when that clearly is not the intention or legal requirement of the car.
Neighborhood Electric Vehicles (NEVs) are relatively new to the Canadian market, and few have been sold in Canada to date.
Transport Canada adamantly continues to claim they have been unable to substantiate claims made by other parties regarding NEV safety history due to a lack of supporting documentation.
Global Electric Motorcars (GEM), a division of Chrysler, which has sold over 30,000 NEVs in the Uniited States, has not reported a single traffic-related death in their vehicles in over 10 years of service in mixed use and controlled environments. If Transport Canada has evidence to the contrary, we would be pleased to receive it.
Similar vehicles in Europe now exceed 300,000 and about 30,000 are added each year. Public accident reports in France show that NEVs are safer in terms of injuries than public transportation.
The Canadian Federal government continues to play the “safety” card. And has embedded fear in the tribe.
We have evolved to the point where we know a lot more than we ever did and we now know that a lot of what we believed for centuries is just plain wrong. However, we are still herd animals and it is our instinctive nature to continue to believe what the tribe believes rather than what's logical. Our minds have not yet evolved to the point where logic and reason dominates over tribal patterns.
The challenge today is that there is a huge volume of information out there, much of it biased or deliberately distorted (crass politics). We’re looking for true leaders who are taking risks in their communities, influencing lasting change, and have the ability to assess the credibility of sources.
It takes courage to believe in what's real.
TAKING STOCK:
Three provinces have unique regulations.
- The Quebec government pilot project is scheduled to end in July 2011. Their pilot project originally planned for a three-year period could be extended until 2013. Quebec's pilot project is to establish and consider allowing NEVs with mixed urban/city traffic.
- The Ontario government pilot program was established to consider allowing NEVs in public parks only. Their pilot project is not established for the NEVs to be allowed with mixed urban/city traffic. Their program is scheduled to end in September 2011.
- The Province of British Columbia is right to encourage their use with mixed urban/city traffic. British Columbia established no pilot program. BC is the only province that allow the use of NEV on streets.
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