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

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

#81

Post by ibejoeb »

HWR_14 wrote: post #41
ibejoeb wrote: post #16

No substance. How could the government limit the size of vehicles? > Companies will never voluntarily reduce their SUV sizes unless outside forces pressures them to do (like $10 oil). If oil (say, brent crude) goes to $10, something has gone very awry.

> How could the government limit the size of vehicles? Tons of ways. For instance, "a car must get at least 40 MPG". "A car can weigh no more than X". There are lots of whats to phrase the rules. Or do you mean "how could the government possibly enforce a law against a product in a highly regulated industry with compulsory registration", in which case it seems obvious.

Certainly. I'm not saying there is no way to do something like this. This post just doesn't offer anything.

It complains about environmental matters, and then it goes on to complain about weight. Make one wonder if the author has ever weighed a car-sized battery.

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

#82

Post by tweetle_beetle »

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…

If SUVs were genuinely solving a widespread problem that would otherwise involve people owning multiple cars, I suspect that we would all hear a lot from environmentalists about them.

Anecdotally, when I've met "real" people who live in remote areas, they tend to drive old, unglamourous, and often semi broken cars. Wealthy second home owners, city folk practising an outdoor activity on the odd weekend, suburbanites keeping up with the neighbours, etc. are the ones who feel the need to buy new vehicles suitable for conditions they experience once in a blue moon, if ever.

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

#83

Post by vorpalhex »

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?

I don't know how to tell you this, but other people are different from you.

The world is full of people who have families and lives and they are not just shallow copies of you.

Just because something isn't to your liking or understanding doesn't mean it's bad or wrong.

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

#84

Post by njarboe »

toss1 wrote: post #71
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.

Nonsense, particularly in this case - the SUV is not some act of god but a result of prior necessary regulation that needs adjustment. The SUV was basically created by the govt when CAFE (Corp Average Fuel Efficiency) standards specified higher fuel efficiency for cars vs "light trucks" (27.5 vs 21mpg, IIRC). So, instead of promoting the previously ubiquitous station wagon as a family-hauler, automakers started promo…

There is also the 25% "Chicken Tax"[1] on imported light trucks started in 1964 and still in force today. Domestic auto manufactures were highly motivated to get the public to buy trucks/SUVs instead of cars for the last 60 years and they did a pretty good job at it.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/chicken-tax.asp#:~:text....

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

#85

Post by gfaster »

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?

Ignoring the folly of the automobile being the only way to travel, and that independent mobility is all but dead in the United States, you are not the target of regulations like this. The target is needlessly large vehicles that do little but to stoke the ego of the owner, or maybe simply being another step up in the SUV safety arms race.

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

#86

Post by HWR_14 »

rpmisms wrote: post #45
HWR_14 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

So far the four of us who have turned 18 are doing great for ourselves, so it turned out pretty well. No neglect, great food, and an excellent education. Are you saying some of us should have been put in the notoriously abusive foster care system instead of having a great family?

You mentioned education, and I assume you attended public schools, because 10 tuitions sound like a lot (and homeschooling sounds impossible). I'm amazed your parents were able to afford to feed you well, but good for them.

But how on earth were you supervised. I guess one parent must have been stay-at-home. Which means the other had to earn an income for the whole dozen of you? Did you ever see that parent (seriously, did they have to work 80+ hrs a week?)

> Are you saying some of us should have been put in the notoriously abusive foster care system

I think if you have 10 kids, then someone checking in to make sure that the kids are being fed, supervised, educated becomes a thing that probably needs to happen. If your parents were able to pull it off, great. I just doubt many parents could.

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

#87

Post by inanutshellus »

wbsss4412 wrote: post #31
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.

I don't think it's terribly hyperbolic. OP wants to get rid of something he doesn't use and presents a black-and-white statement for why it's rational, but SUVs have so many proponents that the govt'd have to override all of them without their opinion weighing in to get it passed as law before they had a chance to kick you out of office. (See, say, the efforts in the 1970s to get the USA to use the metric system as an example.)

Is it possible? Yes, that's why I used the weasel words of "don't really happen" instead of "don't ever happen".

I also pointed out that the more likely way to get OP's way would be to continue raising taxes on those vehicles to illicit the same result without outright making SUVs illegal to produce.

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

#89

Post by wbsss4412 »

inanutshellus wrote: post #87
wbsss4412 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I don't think it's terribly hyperbolic. OP wants to get rid of something he doesn't use and presents a black-and-white statement for why it's rational, but SUVs have so many proponents that the govt'd have to override all of them without their opinion weighing in to get it passed as law before they had a chance to kick you out of office. (See, say, the efforts in the 1970s to get the USA to use the metric system as a…

That’s fair enough, I seem to have misread your original comment as “bans on things individuals like == dictatorship”, which is a common enough sentiment, unfortunately, that the connection is all to easy to make.

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

#90

Post by kodah »

samemail88 wrote: post #78
kodah wrote: post #68

> There were 35,766 fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States in 2020 in which 38,824 deaths occurred. This resulted in 11.7 deaths per 100,000 people and 1.34 deaths per 100 million miles traveled. The fatality rate per 100,000 people ranged from 4.9 in Massachusetts to 25.4 in Mississippi. The death rate per 100 million miles traveled ranged from 0.63 in Massachusetts to 1.97 in South Carolina. Footnote Sour…

But does this include pedestrians and bikers who are killed by vehicles?

Yes, at least one of the tables explicitly mentions that the statistics they use cover pedestrian deaths and the whole page is built using that single data set.
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