Sure, but they don't necessarily need such big ones. Big cars are primarily a consumer preference thing in the US rather than an actual need, and consumer preferences can change, both organically and due to outside pressure (the 70s oil crisis did reduce the size of American cars significantly, for instance).

Also, of course, bad mass transit is fixable. And potentially fairly cheaply; for the lowish density cities common in the US BRT systems would likely largely be fine.

They might not need them but they like them and can afford them.

We can afford them for now. If oil prices go up significantly I’ll seriously reconsider my 18MPG suv... but I’ll reconsider to an alternative that can still support my lifestyle (perhaps Tesla truck, or something like RAV4 Prime/Hybrid but larger). Not a mini car that can’t go fast.

Going fast is the fun in driving.

I like the sights, myself. The only time I go over 100kph is on the freeway, and it's not by much.

Based on the metric I’m guessing you don’t live in USA? Here we have vast expanses of designated wilderness area (well over 1M sq km), where it can be really quite fun to get up to speed while enjoying the views.

I do live in the USA. I used 100kph because that's the car under discussion.

I've never been to a drivable wilderness area, or on a freeway where I'd be comfortable going all that fast. And if I was going there just to drive hard it would probably be rare enough that I'd rent a really nice fast car.

Average price of a new car in the US is creeping up on average income, so the ‘can afford’ thing may be marginal. The industry seems to be quite effective at making people stretch their spending on this.

Nothing but their own egos requires monster vehicles. It's not like Dallas and Orlando are full of unpaved roads.

Until you need to haul 6 kids, or three bikes, or furniture, or hone remodeling supplies from Home Depot, etc.

Cars aren’t sized to our average use case, they they are sized to frequent use cases.

I’m getting tired of the “all I need is a tiny tin box thus so should you” crowd.

That's a specific (I think over represented) use-case. When I had my first kid I considered something large. Looking around I saw people buy large cars after having their first kid and by the time they needed it (driving around friends, hockey equipment, etc) it was 5-7 years old and probably getting swapped out anyway. I'm happy I switched to a 4-door and went with a smaller car. I can carry much more and longer lumber using a roof rack on top of a subcompact than I can inside a larger vehicle. If I need something larger I rent it or have it delivered. Using a bike rack outside the car is much easier than storing it inside. For road trips I'm pretty sure I've seen its cheaper to rent something instead of putting miles on your daily vehicle--so you get a nicer car that's more appropriately sized.

The average number of kids in the US is 1.9 and the median age interval is 2-3 years. That's not that many years of carrying around kids and their gear; one, maybe two cars in a lifetime.

On the other hand, so many Americans drive by themselves, long distances, every day, in giant cars. A lot of people like larger cars because it makes them "feel safe." Or people buy the largest vehicle they can "just in case." I was taken aback when I found out about 10 years when a friend had to run his credit card twice to fill up because it capped the sale at $50 and when gas prices went up he couldn't fill his tank for that.

I feel like I'm the weirdo in the US for preferring smaller cars. I couldn't stand poor pickup of fleet vehicles a decade ago, but as long as they have decent pickup I really love the maneuverability, the ease of parking in smaller spots, and the mileage of a smaller car.

>Until you need to haul 6 kids, or three bikes, or furniture, or hone remodeling supplies from Home Depot, etc.

Station wagon with a roof rack can do any two of those things at once. And I say this as someone who also owns a minivan and a couple trucks. I actually prefer station wagons for hauling sheet material that's too long or wide to fit flat in a pickup bed because it's less of a pain to deal with strapping it to a roof rack than any of the other options.

The problem with this approach is that despite the fact that modern vehicles can support thousands of pounds on (or in) the passenger cabin and that modern air suspension and dynamic shocks (as found on many higher trim SUVs these days) would be fine with the extra weight) it is not socially acceptable (and social norms are very much defined by vocal minorities) to use vehicle at 110% their capacity if you can reasonably avoid to. Imagine the "think of the children" themed hate you'd get if you posted a picture of a Mercedes wagon hauling 300lb of I-beam on the roof or a minivan hauling a ton of paver bricks or a bunch of people crammed into a Honda Fit for a road trip. That's why we can't made do with less.

What’s a “station wagon”?

They are called “SUVs” today Mr Griswold.

Audi station wagons are probably the single most common company car in Germany. Much more fun to drive than any SUV for sure.

A lot of the arguments here read like people want an SUV that will fit all the stuff you'd normally just use a trailer for, like moving furniture or a bunch of lumber. This seems very odd to me.

I drive a Porsche Macan, I guarantee it’s a better drive than an Audi wagon.

And it’s not big enough for me. If we take a trip, it’s the Cayenne, because it’s far more comfortable with 4 people plus dog plus luggage.

Cars like the Subaru Outback. They're long, but not tall.

>Station wagon with a roof rack can do any two of those things at once.

Most roof racks have a capacity of 100-150lbs. You certainly aren't hauling plywood or furniture on your roof.

We discovered, after accidentally having twins and bumping the kids count to 3, a typical sedan cannot physically carry more than two children because you cannot fit 3 or more child seats in the back as required by law. That's why families of 3 or more kids have minivans. It's not like the 80s where you toss the kids in a station wagon and let them wander in the back, they are required to be in massive padded seats.

Chicco infant and EvenFlo little and big boosters will get you to three in a back row. Use a seatbelt extender or two to make buckling easier. Not taking away from your point, because parents absolutely prefer two to a row, just helping anyone who happens to read this.

Families of 3 also have e.g. station wagons. Big sedan should be fine seating-wise too.

Suburbia has made parents lives needlessly miserable with extra kid hauling. For the other rare occasions, rent a bigger vehicle. The idea that we need to clog the roads to prepare for that 2/y errand is also ridiculous.

> I’m getting tired of the “all I need is a tiny tin box thus so should you” crowd.

I don't care to tell people what they need, but I do want my public space back. Car owner's aggregate decisions absolutely do effect personally and the commons so they have no right to hide behind that shield.

Bigger cars don’t “clog” the roads. Their impact on car spacing is minor.

Among the options in the US, but vehicles like this really do.

The only one of those that requires a large car is six kids (which is pretty rare). Bike racks work great on small cars. Home Depot delivers. I rent a van or truck to move furniture the one time a year I need to do it. Most people who drive a giant SUV absolutely do not need one.

No one needs a car at all. We could live like hermits in the woods and go back to hunting and gathering.

But if you live in the real world, why not drive a car that makes it easier to do all the things you want to do, if it’s easily affordable?

Thanks for the slippery slope, but they're saying that it barely makes it easier. So the question is how much money you want to spend on that barely.

No the question is why are you hectoring other people with different use cases for how they choose to drive their cars?

The comment of yours that I replied to was in response to someone whose first sentence is an acknowledgement that the use case of 6 kids does need such a car.

Then they suggest that the other use cases are valid but people like them don't need such a car despite those use cases.

How did you interpret that as "hectoring other people with different use cases"??

Or alternatively, how much nicer of a car would you like to have for the same money? Most large SUVs are not well-constructed, nor are they much fun to drive. They’re just big.

My smallish wagon does everything a typical family (2 adults, 2 kids, dog) has a regular need for (heck, I carry trees and 2x12s and gravel in it, which is more than most people need). On the rare occasion that I’m buying furniture and they don’t deliver or whatever, I rent a van. As a result, my day-to-day driving experience is infinitely more pleasant.

True! But they’re spending the dollars, so their preference is what will be built for (see: Ford’s vehicle lineup, all trucks and SUVs). And if you attempt to regulate against them, you’ll get voted out (just like NIMBYs).

There are a lot of personal preferences we regulate away. I prefer to drive drunk home from the bar, but that's illegal. I prefer to build buildings without obeying fire safety building codes, but apparently that's also illegal.

30k / year die in car accidents in the USA. This is a real problem with a huge human toll, akin to drunk driving or building codes.

Step 1 is slow the vehicles down. As soon as they slow down, one of the main drivers of size - fear of an accident with a bigger vehicle - will be greatly decreased and we can do step 2: shrink them.

> Step 1 is slow the vehicles down

I can't even imagine what that would do to traffic that is already pretty congested. Large swaths of suburban metros would just grind to a halt.

> 30k / year die in car accidents in the USA

Closer to 40K. Even then, that is compared with almost 3 million people who die for all reasons combined. It's actually sort of amazing how low the fatality rate is given just how much movement there is every day. One for every 100,000,000 miles driven. That's remarkable.

Slower speeds means cars drive closer together which means throughput increases (to a point). I think around 60km/h is generally considered the speed which yields the biggest throughput of cars.

I think we need to change our language a bit and stop referring to crashes as accidents.

Crashes are common. Accidents are exceptionally rare. While "accident" is a statement of intent, and outside of extreme road rage scenarios, nobody intends to cause a crash, people do deliberately create dangerous situations that lead to crashes.

You might not have intended to rear-end somebody, but you did choose to text while driving.

You might not have intended to side-swipe somebody, but you did choose to not check your blind spot before changing lanes.

The word "accident" implies a mistake that you couldn't see coming. But when someone chooses to create the dangerous situation, it's no longer an accident, because the situation could have been avoided entirely.

You are also right driving has never been safer. But you could have said that before airbags or abs or even seatbelts.

and fyi, interstate driving is dangerous:

> the fatality rate per 100 million miles traveled in 2015 was still 2.6 times higher in rural areas than in urban areas (1.84 in rural areas compared with 0.71 in urban areas)

https://www.tariolaw.com/fatal-car-crashes-urban-car-acciden...

Bay Area public transport is not good compared to East Coast or Chicago.

That’s not what his comment was really saying, only that those cities have much better transit than most of America.