The US government of yesteryear recognized a problem, so they drew up legislation intended to improve fuel efficiency, and thus reduce emissions. But they recognized that certain trades required large vehicles that could never be that efficient. So they built in a loophole for vehicles over a certain size not counting towards the requirements being placed manufacturers. Manufacturers being the crafty hogs they are realized if they just increased the size of everything they wouldn’t have to follow any of the rules. Now you have a company like Ford that only has one actual car ( a muscle car at that) in its lineup. Everything else are trucks suvs and crossovers.
The government of today could rewrite these rules to make the loophole require business licenses or something else, but half of them refuse to see there’s a problem at all, and half of what’s left are in the pocket of the problem makers.
What’s more interesting is that if you go overseas and look at the same brands, you can see companies like Ford and BMW selling station wagons and normal-sized cars without a single truck, if any, available for purchase.
The Obama admin began changing CAFE to use a whole-fleet average which would have closed the large vehicle loophole.
The Trump admin reversed that and pushed to eliminate CAFE altogether.
Not to mention they’re tremendously dangerous for everyone who isn’t inside. The fear of dying in a car crash meets the illusion of safety, when it’s being forced to ride or drive in a car that puts your safety at risk to begin with.
This is what happened with my family. We had a VW GTI and a Golf… when the kiddo came along the wife wanted an SUV so if we got in an accident the kid wouldn’t be automatically dead by one of these fucking monstrosities… I think I’m slowly convincing her that a car might be safe, but VW doesn’t make the Golf for USA anymore…
I feel like maybe a path forward would be a long the lines of what someone else has said. Make vehicle registration cost more depending on how big it is… but who knows…
Now to top it all off because of America’s obsession with big vehicles there is still a limited selection of small hatchbacks in the EV zone…
A big truck should require a CDL, maybe not the same class of CDL a tractor-trailer requires, but a significant bar to entry. Automotive lobbies have probably kept this from happening yet.
But what about my truck that is 65 tonnes of American Pride?
The problem isn’t only the cars, but the people who drive those cars also tend to not respect the rules.
Bigger cars need to have more harsh road rules applied. Had a dodge ram 1500 go the wrong way around a round about as an example the other day and nearly hit me on my scooter.
If I get hit by a hatchback, I’m fine (it has happened before). Dodge ram? I’m dead
Simply requiring a truck licence and applying different rules would be enough
All my homies want a '95 Toyota Pickup instead of a '24 F-250.
That’s the thing. You still see those old toyotas on the road. They’re ugly from wear but still choochin.
If they had their frames replaced. 95-04 iirc were the bad years, and they were bad years for rot.
The US needs to revisit emissions laws. We need access to smaller trucks. Very VERY few people need a tank on public roads. I’d love to get something like an S10, early 2000’s ranger, or an older Tacoma sized truck. My 13" F150 extended crew is the largest truck I feel comfortable owning.
It does make me curious: has anyone seen a survey on how widespread that interest may be? Sure, it’s the practical answer, but i it an answer that a lot of people would give?
Or how much price difference would it require? We naturally expect a smaller vehicle to cost less. The propaganda from one major manufacturer is that a small truck is still as complex and materials cost is small, so they could not produce a small truck for enough less that people would buy it. I know it’s corporate propaganda for sticking with their profit machines, but I suspect there may also be some truth in it.
Meanwhile, people hate motorcycles even more
Noisy, dangerous
Smaller, nimble, less polluting, less traffic, faster
Yes
Bullshit, more dangerous because of the other cars who are not used to having motorbikes nearby, and you have this idea of being less protected on a motorbike, in reality you should try to understand that on a motorbike everything is much more predictable and the problem is almost only who is riding it, in a car, you have more blind spots and less control and therefore greater risk of making mistakes and for pollution, seriously, the simple use of a motorbike when all the space in the car is not needed would eliminate almost all traffic on the road therefore less pollution, less weight to move, less wasted energy, motorbikes are better in everything and not they are only considered because of the comfort zone of the average person.
And noisy what the fuck means? even motorcyclists can be idiots and change the exhaust to make more noise, but this happens because having the fucking motorbike is a niche of people who adore and modify their motorbike, but you can very well not do it.
Yes, it definitely is the cars fault
I hope you’re not being ironic, but this is the example.
a tall and bulky vehicle full of blind spots, which causes an accident with a motorbike due to lack of precedence.
the second is an idiot, but I never said that motorcyclists can’t be idiots
I think everyone knows someone who died on a motorcycle. I know of a few, none of which involved a crash with other vehicles.
As for noise… All motorbikes are noisy. They have short exhausts.
I know someone who died because he was irresponsible, I myself had 2 accidents, one of which was serious and I no longer ride because I don’t trust myself or others, with the problem that I spend a lot more if there is no public transport.
It’s a vehicle that gives too much freedom, and it doesn’t take long for a person who isn’t fully responsible to abuse what he can do on the road.
I was speaking more ideally, because if you limit yourself you can have all the advantages it can give without ending up between the sheets of guardrails and cars.
That’s why I don’t have one, because I would just abuse the power. My 400hp car is already a bit too much for me, should have got something much slower lol
Challenging this. Maybe the problem is the constant appetite to change your car every year? Maybe if there was a push to have consumers keep the same car for 10 years (I’ve had mine 11 now) it would be overall better for the environment. I’d argue the biggest impact on the environment around automobiles is the energy taken to create it, not to use it once it exists. This is what worries me with the push to electric. Perhaps we shouldn’t be pushing people to continue the same model of disposable vehicles except now they’re electric. Maybe we should stop people treating vehicles like they’re disposable.
This is my same belief with phones, computers, etc.
We have an underlying problem with how we treat things as disposable.
Correct me if I’m wrong but most of times when they dispose of a vehicle they sell it someone else to use right? So the only waste for that person be the rapid loss in car value after buying it new. Or are a lot of these cars ending in the dump?
Frequently changing vehicles is wasteful to that person’s weatlth but the vehicle stays on the road just as long. For the rest of us, this behavior just fills out a fpbigger used car market
I don’t think big cars are especially bad. Imho the issue is at-will vehicle license. We should give them to people who need it for work or really can’t do otherwise.
EDIT: before you downvote, please consider if you have conflict of interest in this. If you are a polluter yourself, you are not rational.
Nothing’s as badfaithed as a vroomer.
