It’s a safe bet that few Massachusetts residents have ever heard of kei trucks, the diminutive Japanese vehicles that the Commonwealth legalized last week. They have niche uses and a cult following among car enthusiasts, but you’re not likely to see one out delivering pizzas.

But their growing popularity — NBC reported that imports of the trucks have tripled over the past five years — highlights an unmet need. American automakers have instead prioritized big, heavy, expensive pickups and SUVs, based on the impression that Americans won’t buy small vehicles.

Those behemoths can be disastrous, though — for pedestrians, cyclists, or anyone else sharing the road with them. Electric versions, while they offer environmental benefits, tend to be even heavier. and at least some drivers seem to be tiring of the high price of trucks and SUVs, along with the cost of fueling and maintaining them.

“You just can’t get an affordable pickup truck here in Texas,” a brewery owner in San Antonio told NBC. “And this kei truck fits most everything we need.”

Kei trucks occupy the opposite extreme on the spectrum from American pickups — they’re the smallest class of street-legal vehicle in Japan. For complicated reasons, only kei trucks that are more than 25 years old can be legally imported into the United States. But importing them legally doesn’t mean you can actually drive them legally: Since they often lack common safety features like airbags, some states forbid kei trucks, some allow them, and some allow them with restrictions, such as prohibitions on highway use.

Massachusetts provoked an outcry among car enthusiasts — and from residents of places like Nantucket, where kei trucks are a practical alternative to bigger vehicles — when it stopped registering the little trucks earlier this year. The Registry of Motor Vehicles reversed direction last week, saying it would register the vehicles “while continuing to review safety implications of Kei Vehicles on the public roadways.”

Safety has to come first, but it’s not just the driver’s safety that should factor into the equation. It’s in the broader interests of public safety for the state to leave a pathway for very small vehicles to operate — if for no other reason than for the sake of the pedestrians those vehicles may eventually collide with.

Kei trucks, or similar vehicles, won’t be for everyone. Detroit focuses on SUVs and pickups for a reason: they’re popular and profitable.

Still, there is clearly a shift happening on the roads, which are getting crowded with nontraditional vehicles like scooters and e-bikes. Americans want more options when it comes to getting around and don’t necessarily expect vehicles to fit neatly into categories like “truck” or “car” or “bike” anymore. Regulation should evolve, too, to take into account that not all streets are the same. A kei truck that might not be suitable for an interstate could be perfectly safe in an urban environment where speed limits are typically low.

Drive around Boston or Cambridge and you’ll likely see oversized delivery trucks blocking traffic and meal delivery drivers in their personal vehicles double parking. These annoyances are symptoms of a mismatch between the size of the vehicles in use and the size of the streets.

If automakers manufactured — and states allowed — many more smaller options, maybe cost-conscious drivers and businesses would start using them. That would save them money and make the streets safer for the rest of us. No, we don’t see kei trucks delivering pizza now — but wouldn’t it be nice if someday we did?

The Boston Globe