They have to be registered with the state department of motor vehicles.

Either charge them a differentially higher vehicle registration fee, or ban them outright.

Another front is questioning whether car insurance rates reflect the real legal liability that drivers of these vehicles incur?

If they truly kill kids then shouldn't their car insurance rates be exorbitantly higher?

But, IMHO, the legal minimum liability insurance policy is way too low. A serious car accident could easily cause millions in personal injury damage. Most US states require only ~$50k personal injury coverage.

So don't hit that Rolls in Los Angeles.

Typically the dead child is held liable.

That’s a political non-starter in the U.S. You’d have better luck taking away personal firearms.

A way to feel this is to go car-free for a week in the US. Some places are easier than others. But compare this to going car-free for a week in Europe. It will probably be a much different experience for most places in Europe, as compared to the US.

I would be in favor of governments taking that more seriously.

But the majority of the things people think of as "rights" do, in fact, come from the law. "The law" is just us collectively deciding what the rules we live by are.

There is a small set of fundamental human rights, but that's a bit of a different thing and I think it's very hard to argue that driving a vehicle on public roads is one of them.

I define “rights” as what I may do morally, not a code, act, statue or “collective” decision. Words can have multiple meanings. What you are calling rights, I am calling arbitrary rules made by other people against my will.

Edit to reply to below: I am that I am. I don’t take titles like anarchist, but sure, that’s a decent title if you insist.

Anarchy isn’t a system. It’s just a word. It means no rulers. I don’t think that we should abolish the government (nor could we, it doesn’t exist), I just wish people would grow up morally, so we (conscious beings) didn’t feel the need to play ruler and ruled. I wish to see a world where each being understands morality and what is right and wrong “to the bones” or “from the soul”, so the idea of abstracting away and externalizing our morality and violence was no longer the accepted normal.

Edit since I can’t reply further down: “Reproductive rights” as you call them are also something that doesn’t come from laws or the constitution, whether the constitution protects it or not. Regardless of one’s moral standing, it is never up to other people to decide what is right or wrong for me. That is for me to decide. My rights end when I cause harm to another being, as as defined by the other being who claims to be harmed. No government or papers are needed.

Narrow lanes, reduce visibility, add complexity and turns. Traffic will naturally slow down with drivers paying more attention. It's been demonstrated that the easier you make a road to drive on, the more people speed and play with their phones.

Further reading if you're really curious about this situation in particular, there's been a lot of back and forth around Menlo Park / Atherton specifically: - https://www.ci.atherton.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/8751/Engin... - https://www.almanacnews.com/news/2020/10/22/menlo-park-counc... - https://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/2016/11/17/palo-alto-eye... - https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/agendas-m... - on 85th percentile theory: https://dot.ca.gov/programs/safety-programs/setting-speed-li...

Particularly amusing is https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/30/radar-isnt-best-optio... ... where most people seem to agree that everyone drives too fast, but in order to use radar / lidar to measure speed, they'd need to comply with state law which would mean /raising/ the speed limits in order to comply with the 85th percentile rules, so instead they just stick their heads in the sand and continue to believe, despite many studies finding to the contrary, that zero enforcement and a sign that says 25mph will actually get people to drive on 5-lane roads at ridiculously slow speeds. This leads to an exciting mix of a few cars trying to actually drive the 25mph speed limit while most other people try to frantically pass them. Extra fun on sections that don't have left turn lanes, where the left of the two lanes becomes the de-facto turn lane, then combine that with the general lack of turn signal usage and you get...a very frustrating commute indeed. But what do you want for your $3m 1000sqft single-family home in those neighborhoods??

Edit: there's a lot more traffic engineering theory around speed limits vs how fast people actually drive. The last couple of points in particular are extra fun: https://www.saratoga.ca.us/DocumentCenter/View/998/Setting-S...

    The rationale for speed zoning is also based on the following fundamental concepts, which are
    deeply rooted in our system of government and law:
    •  The normally careful and competent actions of a responsible person should be considered legal.
    •  Laws are established for the protection of the public and the regulation of unreasonable
    behavior by the individual.
    •  Laws cannot be effectively enforced unless the majority of people voluntarily consent to and   
    comply with them.
 
    In general, most people accept, understand, and follow these concepts. But, as mentioned
    earlier, when confronted by local traffic challenges—an increase in traffic volumes or the frequency
    or severity of car crashes in a particular area, for example—people often reject these concepts and
    rely instead on a number of widely held misconceptions, such as:
    •  Lowering a posted speed limit will reduce traffic speeds.
    •  Raising a posted speed limit will increase traffic speeds.
    •  Lower speed limits will reduce the rate of crashes and increase safety.
    •  Any posted speed limit is safer than an unposted speed limit.
 
    In fact, these commonsense notions are not supported by studies, which consistently
    demonstrate that:
    •  The speed of traffic does not change significantly after new or revised speed limits are posted.
    •  There is no direct relationship between posted speed limits and the frequency of traffic
    crashes.

But the main difference is the length, and the straightness.

I'm afraid I don't have any solutions.

Possibly it's still a bit wide -- the middle could be painted as a 0.5m wide hatching rather than just a single/double line, or maybe bike lanes could be fitted between parked cars and the existing kerb, but that is probably tight.

There is literally no way in hell that you are going to get anyone in the US with a large truck or SUV to drive under 20mph

Not really. They're more lethal and will kill thousands of people in the US.

Are they really? A quick search for "US pedestrian deaths by vehicle type" and I came across this 2005 study [0] looking at pedestrian fatalities per mile by vehicle type (and I'll admit some has changed in the nearly 20 years since the study was published). What surprised me was motorcycles caused more pedestrian fatalities than light trucks per billion miles. Urban buses had the highest kill rate, nearly 4 times that as light trucks.

Happen to have anything with more current statics?

[0] https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/injuryprev/11/4/232...

The statistic needs to be vehicle type in accidents in urban areas.

Notably all vehicle types become more dangerous in urban areas but even buses on rural roads are more dangerous than light trucks on urban roads.

Buses have flat fronts (at least to a typical chest/head height), so they're terrible for pedestrian collisions. The typical American school bus from 2002 is horrendous -- huge blind spots, a high chassis, and the typical user being well below adult height. To European eyes, they look like some sort of off-road military transport vehicle.

Though other than buses, I think the paper supports the video:

> The increased risk associated with light trucks is attributed to several factors: their greater mass; greater vehicle speed of collision with pedestrians, and their front end design.

It seems hopeless but maybe there is a marketer somewhere who can convince Americans that more practical vehicles are also cool. Ford has just reentered the small pickup market with the Maverick, for example, and I believe they are doing well.

Electrification could also push people to smaller vehicles, if the range benefits are real.

There should also be an exemption for overlanders who otherwise live in urban environments for whom the truck is not a daily driver.