I believe in the right tool for the job. Getting people and goods from A to B is a job that's done incredibly inefficiently and unsafely. Our society would be cleaner, quieter, and safer if we right-sized our vehicles.
Your thesis is that people are throwing away on the order of $30-$50k every 8 years or so, in order to do something inefficiently and unsafely.
If that were true, these golf cart vehicles would sell like mad. As it is, “subcompacts” have failed to sell in the US.
I posit that there is very significant utility in larger vehicles that your personal experience is simply failing to account for. Humbly consider that for millions of Americans they decide to spend their hard earned money on a large vehicle because in fact it provides massive utility to them and their family.
Besides, our transportation system is a modern marvel, and the safest way to achieve mobility per mile ever in human history. So to call it incredibly inefficient and unsafe is not merely hyperbolic it’s just untrue.
I suspect we can and will continue to make transportation safer per mile into the future. I see no evidence whatsoever that miniaturizing vehicles is the way to do that, certainly not without outlawing or somehow segregating the bigger ones, which is neither practical nor economically or socially viable.
The market is good at finding local minimums/maximums, but even there it fails when there’s weird trends and perceived benefits.
Like the SUV trend that stubbornly won’t go away. Bad drivers behind these 5000 lbs death-on-wheels is the primary reason I would never own a sub compact, even as a second car!
This is where government comes in, to gently but firmly guide the market through taxes and rules.
I really wish crash test scores would factor in the effect of the car they hit.
People have this idea that "bigger = safer", and all it's done is create an arms race. My previous car was a Subaru BRZ, a 2-door coupe not much bigger than a Miata. In crash tests, it scored great! If I hit a wall, pole, tree, or another Subaru BRZ, it was a very safe car.
But if I got hit by a 5,500 Chevy Suburban, my small car would be obliterated.
Of course, the "bigger = safer" mentality also ignores the fact that a smaller, lighter car is going to be more agile and will do a much better job at avoiding crashes altogether.
It'd be interesting to see if purchasing patterns changed if testing driving a car included having to take it through a course where you had to practice emergency maneuvers.
There is no such thing as "the market". There are innumerable markets on Earth. Some do a good job at accounting for externalities, while some do a terrible job of it. No market is perfect!
>for millions of Americans they decide to spend their hard earned money on a large vehicle because in fact it provides massive utility to them and their family
Nobody is disputing that large cars are useful for people who drive them. The claim is that the utility they provide to the driver is massively offset by unaccounted for negative externalities.
Road wear, brake dust, and fuel consumption is all higher with heavier vehicles. If those costs were paid by the drivers and owners of heavy vehicles, those people would be more likely to purchase smaller and lighter vehicles.
>somehow segregating the bigger ones
Why is that not practical? Why should passenger vehicles drive on the same roads that are constantly torn up by heavy trucks? I imagine most people would be pleased to drive on smooth roads with less air pollution.
Outside of fuel consumption, which indeed is directly paid for by the person who owns the car, It's all paid for by taxpayers, and like any public service some people don't use it as much as others (or at all). Everyone in NYC pays for the subway yet some people own a car and drive it exclusivity.
> I imagine most people would be pleased to drive on smooth roads with less air pollution.
This largely doesn't matter to most people since cars have very good air filters[0,1]. I also question how much a regular consumer truck actually contributes to road wear compared to the millions of 18 wheelers that weigh over 50,000 pounds.
0: https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/tesla-hospita...
1: https://www.kbb.com/car-news/will-my-cars-filter-system-help...
You ignored the topic of brake dust.
I mentioned heavy trucks in my comment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_classification#Table_of_...
Light and medium trucks can still contribute to road wear. How much depends on their load level.
the cost of infrastructure is a huge part of the cost of personal vehicle transport. if the cost of using it was relative to the strain your chosen transportation type put on that infrastructure, i have no doubt that we'd see a swing to smaller vehicles.
Passenger vehicles currently pay more than their fare share in road maintenance costs.
Overall, roads and infrastructure are a profit center for governments, returning $1.5 to $3 for every dollar spent.
http://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic...
The market necessarily only optimizes internalized costs. The market will happily sell you things that burden the lives of people who have no say in the transaction.
SUVs are inefficient, sure. Just compare the gas consumption with a Yaris.
SUVs are unsafe - not for the people in the car, but for the ones outside: pedestrians, cyclists, people in tiny cars.
How do you know?
[0]: https://lirp-cdn.multiscreensite.com/08d31351/dms3rep/multi/...
[1]: https://steelhorsemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/sheikh2...