politics

I feel like articles like these are red-herrings designed to distract people from the real problem, and/or give them an excuse to feel morally superior when they shouldn't because they drive a normal-sized car instead of a big one.

But here's the real problem: America was a catastrophe of car-dependency even before the bloated SUVs and such started showing up, and merely shrinking the cars back down to normal size isn't gonna fix it. The biggest issue with cars isn't the injuries and deaths from crashes or the or the greenhouse gas emissions; it's the fact that cities are absolutely ruined by trying to build enough parking to accommodate them all. Forcing everything to be spread out in order to fit parking lots and wide roads in between destroys walkability and the viability of transit. The costs of all the extra land -- or even just all the extra concrete for parking decks -- drive up housing prices. Euclidean zoning prohibits convenient access to third places, harming mental health, and even when the zoning does allow e.g. a pub to be built, customers have to drive drunk to get home because it's too far to walk!

My city imposes minimum parking requirements for businesses that want a license to serve alcohol. Not maximums, minimums. Think about how fucking insane and ass-backwards that is for a minute.

The article makes a big deal about how big vehicles are more dangerous to things they crash into than small ones, but consider this: car wrecks kill tens of thousands of people each year, but that harm is dwarfed by the fact that hundreds of millions of people are obese because they're forced to drive everywhere instead of walking. Over 40% of the total US population is obese now, compared to 10% in the 1950s before the effects of car-dependency had a chance to kick in.

The point is, all of these things don't change whether the cars we're dependent on are little hatchbacks or gigantic SUVs. Practically speaking, every car is the same size: one parking space*. It's the parking spaces themselves -- and therefore the cars that occupy them, whether big, small, electric or gas-guzzling -- that have got to go!

(* or one two-second safe following distance when in motion, compared to which the length of the vehicle itself is negligible in terms of its effect on road lane capacity)

It costs about the same to assemble a SUV and a sedan. An SUV could be priced at close to double. Americans love big things that they can own.

This is a fantastic write up of the problems we are facing in the US automotive market. Broken regulations incentivize large trucks/SUV's, including for electric vehicles.

Smaller vehicles use less energy. Smaller vehicles cause less road wear. Smaller vehicles are fine for most use cases - but I recognize not all use cases. Smaller vehicles cause less damage in collusions to other cars and pedestrians.

I'm not saying to take away any options... But let's stop incentivizing the wasteful and start incentivizing the efficient. I as a consumer would love to see more small car options for selfish reasons. They handle better and are more fun to drive.

The Chicken Tax needs to be abolished alongside the overly strict laws not allowing kei cars and trucks on highways. Yet, motorcycles are allowed on the road and are more dangerous than said kei trucks.

I think that adding to this is people's heightened perception of danger. You feel safer being higher up (which of course is a fallacy, as this article points out). If it was status and advertising alone driving these sales, I would expect to see sportier-looking cars selling more at the same time. I have also noticed more people using vans as domestic vehicles. Home security stuff seems to have boomed around the same time as well.

Interestingly, the most prominent group I can think of who still value small cars are boy racers.

Even Toyota has increased the height and "angrified" the super-popular Sienna, one of the last remaining mini-vans.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Take road safety: Unlike peer nations, the US has endured a steep rise in traffic deaths, with fatalities among pedestrians and cyclists, who are at elevated risk in a crash with a huge car, recently hitting 40-year highs.

Although the tariff was initially aimed at Germany’s immense auto industry (Volkswagen in particular), it also applies to pickups imported from newer automaking powers such as Japan and South Korea, where carmakers are often adept at building vehicles much smaller than those available to Americans.

“The Chicken Tax has prevented competitive Asian or European truck makers from entering the US market,” said Jason Torchinsky, a co-founder of the Autopian, a media outlet focused on the auto industry.

But the bill included a giant loophole: To protect those who need a heavy-duty vehicle (think farmers or construction workers), Congress made an exception, known as Section 179, for cars that weigh over 6,000 pounds when fully loaded with passengers and cargo.

A 2023 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found that vehicles with tall, flat front ends (common on big pickups and SUVs) are significantly more likely to kill pedestrians in crashes.

The negative externalities of supersized cars — in emissions, crash deaths, and the erosion of tires and pavement — are what economists call a market failure, since their costs are borne by society writ large, not the people who buy big pickups and SUVs.

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