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’s license. Is it legal to drive those on public roads?

A: 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 keijidosha – Japanese for light vehicle) trucks. Because they were never built for the U.S. market, they don’t meet the federal safety standards for motor vehicles.

However, there’s a loophole. 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 state.

That’s not true in every state, and as safety concerns increase, so are the number of states that won’t allow the trucks (and kei cars) on public roads. For example, Oregon will only permit them to be titled as an off-road vehicle.

Our 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 a golf cart. Law defines a golf cart 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’s license. If it was revoked, that’s a problem. Golf carts are an exception to the driver’s license requirement. However, the golf cart zone law prohibits a person with a revoked license from driving a golf cart on the road.

Here are some reasons why unlicensed drivers shouldn’t be driving.

About 5% of drivers in Washington are unlicensed, but unlicensed drivers cause 10% of fatal crashes.

In multi-vehicle crashes involving unlicensed drivers, the unlicensed drivers are at fault 58% of the time while licensed drivers are at fault only 14% 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.

Doug Dahl writes a weekly column for this newspaper. He is with the state Traffic Safety Commission.