Former car designer here - big3. The root cause is tax policies. Any vehicle classified as a “truck” is protected from overseas competition by a 25 pc tariff (jfk era), and since Clinton/Bush there is a tax write off available to business owners if the weight was more than 5600# it’s now 6500#.
I.E., there is a tax incentive to make trucks and buy them.
The occupant safety regulations means we make the worlds safest vehicles (for occupants) - roll over regulations have made the an and bill pillars thicker.
If we manage to remove the tariff protection and remove the tax incentives to buy trucks - we will save lives.