That's all great but it's of little help with a driver that is zoned out looking out the window in the wrong direction. About once a week I have a close call stepping into a crosswalk while a driver is in a hurry to make a right turn but is looking out to the left at the (stopped) traffic and ignoring people trying to cross the street. I live near a freeway on-ramp and as soon as the light goes green many drivers seem in such a rush to take off that I wonder if they are already mentally imagining themselves pulling onto the freeway.

> That's all great but it's of little help with a driver that is zoned out looking out the window in the wrong direction.

That will be the case with any vehicle, no matter the size. All the visibility in the world won’t help if the driver is looking in the wrong direction.

Thanks to peripheral vision, that's not true.

If I'm riding a bicycle, I am unlikely to hit a person coming up on my right no matter how focused I am on the traffic from the left. The bigger the vehicle, though, the easier it gets because there's less and less visibility of the pedestrian to pull my attention back.

If it's a visibility issue, then this really has nothing to do specifically with larger vehicles. Many small cars have less visibility than older ones due to smaller windows, larger pillars, and even lower perspectives. Take the newer mustangs, camaros, etc.

This is also my experience in my wife's small Mazda. The window placement or something makes it hard to check my right hand side blindspot. I had an easier time in a bigger / boxer Mitsubishi. I'm not really quite sure what it is but it feels like I can't see a spot I should be able to.

Granted I should be using the little blindspot mirror anyway.. but old habits

That's definitely not my experience. Maybe I'm just used to smaller cars, but when I am above it all, I feel more above it all. But familiarity aside, a higher nose objectively hides a lot more of a pedestrian, making them harder to spot.

The proximity sensors make a loud sound that’s hard to ignore so I don’t think the zoning out is as much a problem in newer vehicles. In many vehicles the car also takes action automatically to brake.

As a frequent pedestrian I also show some caution around vehicles. For instance I don’t charge out in front of a vehicle unless I’ve made eye contact with the driver. I don’t walk right behind vehicles while they’re pulling out in a busy parking lot. And so on. If you’re worried about safety there are many strategies to keeping yourself safe.

I can't make eye contact with a driver who's not looking my way, and it's not my responsibility to delay crossing the road for drivers who DGAF. Perhaps the proximity sensors do make a loud sound, but I've found that yelling 'hey' or hitting the car is sometimes the only means of getting some drivers' attention. It seems to me that if someone wants to operate a large heavy machine on wheels it's their responsibility to be alert while they're operating it.

You are of course right that the driver needs to be alert while driving.

But that is not going to do you any good, if you get hit while walking or biking.

As an example there are sadly too many accidents involving a truck making a right-turn and a person biking.

Being extra careful when walking/biking is the reasonable thing to do, even if that means waiting at the red light.

It is indeed reasonable to careful since a motor vehicle easily outmatches a person, but if you look upthread my original point what many drivers are careless, and the cool technology like peripheral cameras does not always mitigate that.

I think that the trend towards larger vehicles may exacerbate the number of casualties caused by careless driving, and I wonder if all the safety features unintentionally foster a sense of complacency.

I'm really curious why you are being downvoted...

Edit: and now this is being downvoted...

If there was going to be a regulatory move in this space, it's proximity & awareness systems and better visibility that seem to make more sense, than a tax of some kind. These will actually contribute to safety, while a tax would at best be a very minor and indirect influence on market forces.

Generally, trucks do get taxed more through higher registration fees, and indirectly through fuel taxes.

That's all pretty irrelevant because most of that ends up going to various sorts of highway maintenance or general operating budgets for states, not making cares safer.

Regardless, let's see how that plays out in actual taxes: Where I'm at the difference between registering an F150 and a Honda Accord is about $20. (personal, non commercial) Looking at California it's not much different. In Texas they're the same cost, but let's say the average is $20 and do some back-of-the-envelope math:

Registration Fees:

--About 11M vehicles sold each year classified as a light truck (pickup/SUV) = $220M in reg. fees.

--About 40M used cars sold each year. About 50% of Carvana use cars are pickups or SUVs, so that's another $400M.

--Total: $640M

Fuel taxes:

--Average tax of $0.35/gallon

--average of 13,500 mile/year driven

--MPG for Honda Accord = 38, 26 for an F150 for a difference of about 164 gallons/year.

--About 230M eligible drivers in the US. About 88% own a car. About 30% of all vehicles on the road are SUVs/light truck = 61M on the road.

--61M * 164 gallons * $0.35/gallon = $3.5B

Total taxes: $4.15B in taxes extra collected on larger vehicles across the entire country, but none of it goes towards making large vehicles safer.

Even if that was doubled, what would the government spend it on to make cars safer? I can't think of much.

Meanwhile it's becoming harder & harder to find cars that don't have various automatic sensors & safety features, and all manufacturers have agreed to add AEB by 2022. Browsing manufacturer site & dealer inventory, a very large # also have rear-park-assist (which detects pedestrian) either by default, or as an upgrade that is already included on most vehicles in dealer inventory.

If we combined these trends with requirements for greater visibility as well, the combination would do a lot more than an increased tax .