In the US, you are de facto allowed to kill people with your vehicle, so long as you're sober.

If you shoot a kid you probably can't get away with "well I was duck hunting at the playground, it was an accident!", but run them down in your truck and you'll have a sympathetic judge telling you this shouldn't stop you from getting back behind the wheel, and how the kid shouldn't have been there.

This is a bad comparison. "Duck hunting at the playground" is more similar to driving your truck through a playground than it is to hitting a pedestrian who enters a roadway full of active traffic.

Why should it be the driver's fault if someone else puts them in a situation where a negative outcome is unavoidable?

Because playing in the street used to be normal - so normal it was taken as a given, and drivers stole that.

Because the vehicle driver raised the danger.

An adult man running carelessly through the playground is not a significant risk.

Run away / spooked carriage horses that trampled were treated in a similar way.

1/2 tons and 3/4 tons are not what's being addressed in [1]. These are delivery trucks to restaurants, bars, and retail. Dense urban cities like NYC and Boston should limit the number of roads trucks should be allowed to operate on anyway. Smaller, more energy efficient and more numerous delivery fleets should be deployed and the last mile should be done by hand trucks. Of course this is gonna add costs.

The first link is about large trucks and buses, not pickup trucks.

I'd be happy to compromise and keep the trucks if we put in protected (physically separated!) bike lanes everywhere.

Lobbyists don't bribe politicians, the effect more comes from politicians and staff picking up opinions from them because they're people they see a lot.

Anyway, you don't need to bribe an elite to support American car culture. Everyone is united in wanting to own an SUV or a lifted pickup and run over bicyclists.

lol the paper cuts!