So other people drive in a way that is not compatible with my driving because I don’t want headlamps in my cabin. Occasionally there’s a lifted truck behind me and it brightens my cabin.
In those moments I fantasize about placing retroreflectors all over my rear seat headrests but then I pull over and let them past and the moment passes.
Besides, a HN truism is “Yield to gross tonnage”. I liked that. It makes sense that HN users who believe that if you’re big others should get out of the way also get large cars.
“The cemeteries are full of people with right of way” so smaller vehicles should get out of the way of larger vehicles or risk death. It’s a good lesson. Can’t say it’s false.
What is also obviously true is that road damage scales with the fourth power of vehicle mass, and that therefore vehicle taxation should increase at a similar power, so that the drivers of the 3-tonne trucknutted Canyoneros stop freeloading on the community.
The feeling of safety is part of that - drivers think they have better visibility due to seating position. They are also more likely to roll and spin out than other vehicles.
More trucks on the road make the chance of fatalities overall higher. You often find articles saying that fatalities go up when you introduce a truck, and that is true. But that's because trucks are more likely to kill pedestrians or drivers of smaller cars, NOT because of risk to the truck driver. []
It would be better if there were fewer trucks on the road. But if everyone else is buying a truck, it becomes your selfish incentive to do so as well, for the safety of your* family. It is a tragedy of the commons situation.
[*] The exception is single-vehicle accidents, e.g. rollovers. Those are riskier and more likely for the driver of a truck, but also less of a concern in suburban driving.