Of course, all the DOT and EPA crap happens because each country has their own set of regulations and specifications. Since it's widely agreed that cars in places like Europe, Japan, Canada, and the US are all "equal but different" regarding safety and emissions, wouldn't it be a good idea to synchronize all these different requirements into a common set? Actually, yes it would.

The article takes the standard non-car-guy slant of "cars are fast, speed kills, let's make it all safer", but actually this is being pushed by a far more basic requirement... economics. The auto business is running on razor-thin margins, with almost all car companies worldwide either getting into or recovering from a major financial crisis. It's amazingly expensive to design cars to meet completely different sets of standards from country to country, so harmonizing the rules would represent a major cost savings.

Plus it would allow, for example, some loon in Virginia to buy his own damned Alfa Romeo in Milan and ship it here without a huge and expensive hassle. But we won't tell them about that. :)