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Comment by helaoban | Hacker News Reader

Do large families only exist in the U.S? Why is this not an issue for people in any other country?

The explosion in vehicle size over the last 10 years in U.S is off-the-scale absurd, while per-capita fatal crashes have only gone UP over the same period[1].

1. https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/yearl...

EDIT: You wouldn't believe how many GMC Yukons I see in my wealthy SF suburb that are used to shuffle 8 year-olds from school to soccer practice. For the uninitiated: https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/ford-focus-2013-5-d...

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I fail to see a reason to buy a car that would be suboptimal for my personal situation.

Have you ever noticed there are other people where you live? And that they have different personal situations?

So if they don’t need a larger car they shouldn’t have them?

Small cars are available, even in the US, but most people aren’t interested in buying them. There are lots of reasons for that. Unless you plan to get draconian about it, people would need a reason to favor small cars.

Your original argument was basically "a small car won't fit my personal situation". So what? In what way does your situation generalize? You're clearly atypical in family size. Other people have pointed out that it's possible to fit a supermarket shop or travel a long distance in a small car. I imagine a sizable number of Americans, sufficient for a robust market, would be adequately served by a small car.

> So if they don’t need a larger car they shouldn’t have them?

That's nowhere in what I said or in the OP. The OP did talk about pulling "policy levers" to change incentives.

> Small cars are available, even in the US, but most people aren’t interested in buying them. There are lots of reasons for that. Unless you plan to get draconian about it, people would need a reason to favor small cars.

That's basically what the OP is all about.

> The OP did talk about pulling "policy levers" to change incentives.

This is what we’re afraid of. Those policies will cause immense harm and suffering to people who cannot simply buy the small EVs that policy makers want us to buy. The unintended consequences would be devastating to many.

The point is to repeal the regulations that encouraged the growth of the car size in the first place. If you introduce more European style car rules - sure, some people will be disproportionately harmed - but that's true of any regulation. It's a tragedy of the commons problem. Currently the growth of car size disproportionately hurts those who don't have a car at all - will someone think of them?

"I fail to see a reason to eat a serving that would be sub-optimal for my personal situation", said the 600-pound man before digging into a meal of 50 flapjacks and a Big Gulp.

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