The regulators in this case are the problem. What's driving massive hoods and massive trucks in general is fuel economy regulations.

The CAFE regulations specify a target fuel economy based on the "footprint" of a truck [1], which is the wheelbase times the width between the tires. Trucks with larger footprints have less stringent fuel economy requirements. Unfortunately, the formula they use to determine this makes compact trucks practically impossible. A truly compact truck like a 90s Ford Ranger or Chevy S10 is supposed to achieve 44 MPG, while a full sized truck only needs to get 27.

The irony is that many people would prefer to buy a smaller, easier to park, less expensive, safer, and more fuel efficient truck, but these regulations make them unavailable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy...

The other half of this is the chicken tax. Internationally, small trucks are widely available. However the tariffs make it much more difficult for the market to bear the sale of these small trucks (vs domestic mid-size truck or imported small passenger car) in the USA, CAFE notwithstanding.

That's a factor to some extent, but not as much as the CAFE regs. Many foreign manufacturers simply produce trucks in the U.S. or Mexico. Toyota for example makes their pickups in Texas and Mexico and so isn't subject to the chicken tax.

The big 3 and Toyota all used to make compact pickup trucks. Ford has the new compact Maverick coming out next year, but even that is still 6 inches wider, 4 inches taller, and 23 inches longer than the Ranger of 30 years ago. If you look at today's Ranger, it's 11 inches wider, 7 inches taller, and 35 inches longer than the Ranger of 1991.

This does not explain the rise of SUVs though, and generally cars just getting bigger and bigger.

Average vehicles have only grown in footprint by about 4% since 2008. Weight is <10% heavier than when EPA began tracking it in 1975. [1]

Most of the weight shedding after 1975 happened in the 1980s in the immediate wake of peak oil prices. [2] Vehicle weight is just now catching up to what it was just before the ~1980 oil crisis, and current gains are far offset by fuel economy and horsepower ( there is a relationship between power, weight, and acceleration/speed available to the vehicle).

The extra 4% in outlay could very well be explained by a combination of consumer and regulatory demands for safety (all else equal, it is easier to engineer something bigger with cushion room to be safer than it is something smaller).

Ultimately it is difficult to explain away the lack of small trucks and smaller cars without accounting for the large play of regulation (safety testing, poorly constructed CAFE standards, and tariffs).

One can readily see from operators of the 125cc motorcycles like honda Grom, illegal street operators of ATV/dirtbikes, and mopeds that there is considerable demand for minimal footprint transportation. Tiny cars like the Suzuki Alto are in demand in other less regulated markets.

Our criticism should not be the presence of large SUVs and cars, who have legitimate use for large families who live off of dirt roads and those with a low risk tolerance that demands monster sized cars full of safety features and crumple zones. Rather our criticism should be aimed at questioning why the guy riding his ATV down the residential street is a criminal while the well to do person riding newly constructed 4,500 lb Tesla full of toxic metals recharged by the local coal plant is not.

[1] https://www.epa.gov/automotive-trends/highlights-automotive-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s_oil_glut#/media/File:Nom...

I prefer a car containing toxic metals to one that pollutes my city with toxic gases that I have to smell all the time.

A bunch of kids can fit in that blind spot. https://www.wthr.com/article/news/investigations/13-investig...

Which is why they’re now patching it with front cameras. I saw a video from inside the cab of a big pickup truck (like an F250), where they’re at a stoplight and there’s a Corvette in front of them that can’t be seen from the driver’s seat, so they only see it on the dashboard screen.

Pass a higher gas tax. If we paid European gas prices most new cars would get much smaller pretty quickly.

Tax is not the answer. People are already paying the stupid tax on the $60k pickup truck (I laugh at your down votes), but that does not stop people from buying them. They know they are overpriced, maintenance costs are higher, environmental costs are higher, tight parking is an issue, and garage space is too tight, yet they buy them any way.

It used to be people bought trucks because they were the tool they needed but they are a status symbol now. For gods sake can we please go back to small sporty BMW status symbol?

Not everything needs a tax. Just change crash test ratings and manufacturers will have to adapt.

European regulators also take pedestrian safety much more seriously than US regulators. You only see cars in Europe with the pedestrian safe sloping nose.

I'm not sure about that. I see cars like the Cadillac Escalade here in Austria. Not many of them mind you and almost always only outside hotels like the Intercontinental. I assume to ferry wealthy tourists around in what they are accustomed to in the US.

They certainly take driver training much more seriously.

This is the real solution. The quality of drivers in the United States is atrocious. It's laughable what constitutes "driver's education" here. Every state is different, but likely none of them treats driving as the dangerous, serious-at-all-times activity it really is.

Living in an ordinary US metro area without a car is a punishment we reserve for drunks and the desperately poor; we haven’t the heart to inflict it on those who are merely bad at driving. What are we going to say? “Sorry, kid, if you want to be a functioning adult you’d better move to Manhattan.”

Some European jurisdictions also have meaningful vehicle inspections. There doesn't seem to be any US state that will take your car off the road for being jacked up five feet in the air.

In the US, you bring your own car for your driving exam... And this is barely a joke !!

Electric hummer on the way--9000 lbs, 0-60 in 3 seconds.

Tires go from 100% tread to 0 in about the same amount of time too, I assume?

Even the huge trucks are electric now.

https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/f150-lightning/2022/

YEP.

Electric cars are something we must do to halt climate change, but we need to recognize it's an example of doing the same broken thing, just better.

At the end of the day we will have a more green version of what we have now, carrying over all the existing flaws of automobile oriented infrastructure (ie. pedestrian deaths, traffic).

Migrating away from automobile transportation solves "traffic" in only the most obtuse sense of the term - there aren't literally passenger cars contending for space. We care about traffic because it deters us from going where we'd like to and makes remaining trips take longer. I think pretty much everyone acknowledges that walking, cycling, and transit are slower than driving and will deter even more trips. We spin that in a positive way, as encouraging the development of more neighborhood-level communities and businesses. But then it's hard to explain why "traffic" is a problem you're solving. Traffic has the same effects as the solution you're selling!

Traffic is an issue with automobile oriented infrastructure because automobiles are such a space inefficient way of transporting people.

In the context of a conversation of how trucks are getting bigger and bigger, it's worth noting that the size gains are having implications on traffic too!

The point being though that electric cars will be just as space inefficient as ICE cars. If we want to move more people, more efficiently and avoid traffic jams and new highway construction, we'll have to opt for different solutions.

Clearing a traffic jam is only valuable to the extent that people get where they're going faster than they would have via the traffic jam. It's frustrating when the freeway moves at a a light jog, but that's as fast as a city bus was ever going to make progress, anyway.

F-150s are huge trucks? What's a semi to you? Or even a 350? Most people who own 150s don't need them, but they're not huge trucks.

In my mind the Ranger (like the F150 of years ago) is a “normal” pickup truck. The modern F150 is seriously exaggerated even for a pickup.

Many drivers of SUV are not aware of the body of their vehicle because these are so large and high.

How many a large car is turning, say right (via a dedicated lane), but 10-20% of the vehicle is still in the other lane? Hundred times every week probably... This is just driving me crazy because they are not a bus or a very large delivery truck! They are just an Audi, Volvo, BMW, Mercedes, etc ...

CAFE standards (regulations) are the reason why trucks are so large. Fuel efficiency standards are based on the size of vehicle, so a bigger vehicle allows for more fuel consumption and thus a more practical to build vehicle while still meeting standards.

There is no shortage of small trucks internationally. If you want smaller trucks, you seek deregulation (removal of fuel efficiency standards and the chicken tax).

> If you want smaller trucks, you seek deregulation

This is a false equivalency.

> This is a false equivalency.

This is a false statement. Unless you are oblivious to the current regulations, and the fact that one must remove (deregulate) CAFE as it stands before small trucks are economically feasible.

Historically children are actually safer. The large front end distributes the force over the entire body of the child.

That being said,

* better to see the child and not hit them

* people should get training in how to drive trucks. They are not cars. Requiring a special license will make the lazier ones think twice at least

I highly doubt that the larger frontend distributing the force over the whole body makes things safer. In particular because for a higher frontend this includes the head, which is arguably the most sensitive area of the body.

Do you have any studies that back up that claim?