My favorite answer from soccer moms when I ask them why they drive their huge (by US standard tiny to normal) SUVs just around the city: 'I see better from up there and I feel safer in big car'.

So, bad driving skills and realizing it via lack of self-trust, being compensated with degradation of roads and parking for everybody else, or just throwing money at the problem (without fixing underlying issue, but feeling less shitty about it).

All could be easily solved by proportional taxation. Swiss folks figured it like many other things already, each canton has their own car tax rules but most are some formula with horse powers and car weight combined. No chance this decade for anything similar in the US I believe.