Why can't the government put a limit on car sizes? • Hacker News Board

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

#31

Post by wbsss4412 » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 3:45 PM UTC

inanutshellus wrote: post #4

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…

> We don't live in a dictatorship and so absolutes like "never make an SUV" bans this don't really happen.

I can’t tell if you’re being hyperbolic, but banning SUVs isn’t a sign of a dictatorship, and it’s frankly a bit ridiculous to even make the comparison.

The US government has and does ban products all the time for all sorts of reasons. See: alcohol, marijuana/other drugs, incandescent bulbs, etc.

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

#32

Post by gpt5 » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 3:45 PM UTC

frankbreetz wrote: post #22

sfe22 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird question, but they probably do from time to time.

The question is implying if they use it on government funded roads, then the government should get a say on what is allowed.

This is silly reasoning. Of course the government has the authority to dictate their life, even if they didn’t drive in public roads. This doesn’t mean that it’s good for them to do so in this case.

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

#33

Post by abakker » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 3:45 PM UTC

roleplayer wrote: post #5

The massive car sizes we see are because of government emissions regulations to begin with. That’s right, the “big truck to make up for lack of X” phenomenon was actually caused by people attempting to regulate how trucks are made without thinking through thr consequences. People who reach for regulations tend to be bad with incentives, not always, but usually.

to add to this, there is a hilarious plague of "second order" thinking in government, while ignoring first order. We got into this mess with things like the 21 year old drinking age. The federal government doesn't have the authority to make that rule, so instead they provide a highway funding incentive to the states who offer it.

The issues is that it has become the federal government's only tool - provide incentives and try to encourage behavior which can't be directly regulated. As a result, they are basically left with cash handouts to get what they want and must fund those rules out of taxation or the deficit.

if we wanted to have a more sane system, we'd remove second order incentives in favor of direct first order regulations. but, that would require constitutional amendments which are unlikely to pass.

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

#34

Post by samemail88 » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 3:46 PM UTC

flopit wrote: post #18

This is reminding me of the kei cars in Japan : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kei_car

Kei cars are awesome but sadly they will never be safe on American roads even if they're street legal. The speed of our roads and the sizes of our cars will basically kill you if you get into an accident in a Kei car. If our speed limits were lowered and our cars were smaller, I would love to own one of those.

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

#35

Post by rpmisms » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 3:46 PM UTC

gcapu wrote: post #9

rpmisms wrote: post #3

I'm the oldest of 10 kids. My family needed a 15-passenger van to travel. Why can't the government stay out of my business?

Do you drive it on a private road?

Does the road being public mean that my family should have been forced to drive two cars, thus polluting more, all because of some people who can't stay out of other's business?

I understand the argument here, but I think it's bad. Government does get a say in what is driven on roads: safe cars that are often inspected and pose less danger to those around and inside them. That's already a lot of restriction, now we let the gov't pick favorites too? Government is not your fairy godmother, things you don't like will happen.

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

#36

Post by thegrim33 » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 3:46 PM UTC

I feel like this would fall into the "foot in the door" political pattern I've been seeing everywhere where they're just trying to get their foot in the door with some minimal legislation. Whether it's supposedly "for the kids" or "for the environment" or whatever, they're just trying to set a precedent with some legislation that's really minimal (right now) so it's hard to argue against.

However, once they get their way, once they've set their precedent, then they just spend years pushing it further and further to get to where they really want to be. Maybe one year they lower the weight limit. The next they lower the size limit. Maybe they start issuing hard to acquire "permits" to own a "large" vehicle. They they redefine what "large" means the next year. Maybe they start demanding new fees to own large car the next year. And so on, and so on.

What's the saying? Boiling the frog alive? They'll never at any point make a jump that's too far that would cause people to resist it. Every step is just one more tiny little tightening that people will begrudgingly accept. I see this pattern literally everywhere.

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

#37

Post by celtain » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 3:46 PM UTC

Geonode wrote: 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.

I know some libertarians are more extreme than others, but I thought it was generally still agreed that the government has a role to play in stopping people from killing other people.

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

#38

Post by eertami » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 3:46 PM UTC

Geonode wrote: 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.

The government built the roads, to a specific specification of assumed car sizes. If cars get so big that they break these assumptions then roads start getting blocked, or you start to have streets that some cars are too big to fit through (already happens in older cities in Europe) - and this would adversely affect other people.

What next, are speed limits also leading us to a prison society, because people don't have the freedom to drive at 100mph through the city? It's a shared public infrastructure that needs rules to keep people safe and alive. You could always build your own private roads if you want to be free of these oppressive regulations on the shared public highway.

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

#39

Post by mbg721 » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 3:46 PM UTC

HWR_14 wrote: post #28

rpmisms wrote: post #3

I'm the oldest of 10 kids. My family needed a 15-passenger van to travel. Why can't the government stay out of my business?

Maybe the government should have been more in your parents' business. I'm not usually one to think that the government has any place in the family, but 10 children seem like too many for 2 parents to wrangle well. Unless your family has more than two adults, how were you supervised?

They're offsetting the 30 other people who are hand-wringing about having kids.

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

#40

Post by abakker » Tue, Jul 19, 2022, 3:47 PM UTC

HWR_14 wrote: post #28

rpmisms wrote: post #3

I'm the oldest of 10 kids. My family needed a 15-passenger van to travel. Why can't the government stay out of my business?

Maybe the government should have been more in your parents' business. I'm not usually one to think that the government has any place in the family, but 10 children seem like too many for 2 parents to wrangle well. Unless your family has more than two adults, how were you supervised?

"seems" is doing a lot of work here, and you are presuming your worldview to be more correct than the OP's parents? on what basis do you make that judgement? are you not the descendent of someone who once had more than a single child?