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Why can't the government put a limit on car sizes?

ashlan.com

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Re: Why can't the government put a limit on car sizes?

#14
post #2

Why can't they government fix my pet peeves? This kind of thinking is what's leading us to a prison society without privacy or freedom, one little whiny step at a time. The government should do as little as possible, and the least at the federal level.

American government, to be fair, is hamstrung by design. It is meant to be bad at its job in order to limit the damage it might otherwise cause.

Re: Why can't the government put a limit on car sizes?

#19
While I applaud the motivation, it is incorrect (at least in the US) to say that government "should" limit the size and weight of cars as this suggests that it does not already do so which it clearly does. It is also incorrect to state that anyone is forced to buy a big car. Even in the US, there is a selection of sub-compact cars that are fun to drive and tend to be on the cheaper side to buy let alone drive.

I'm all for making the roads safer and reducing petrol use so perhaps we can reframe this as "Governments should continue to work toward increased efficiency and safety".

Re: Why can't the government put a limit on car sizes?

#20

The government addressed this a few years ago by raising taxes on larger car chassis, making vehicles like the Hummer more expensive. This led to the instantaneous rise in popularity of so-called "crossover" vehicles. Puffy vehicles that looked kinda SUV-ish and were elevated for higher road visibility but were built on a smaller (lower tax rate) car chassis. The article of course wants to go to the next step, bannin…

Another comment mentioned this, but SUVs only exist because they were a regulatory exception to energy-hogging large sedans.
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