Seems like it would make sense to mandate a specific height for headlamps. I wonder why this hasn’t been done.
There are rules. FMVSS [1] says lower beam headlamps must be mounted between 55.9 cm and 137.2 cm above the ground, and upper beam headlamps must be mounted not less than 22 inches nor more than 54 inches. The height ranges match, but are specified in different units
But that's a big range.
These rules end up being the stick used to regulate vehicle lifts and lowering; you could lift a vehicle higher, or drop it lower but very few people will do the work to relocate the lights.
[1] https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/p... Table 1-A, seach in page for 'Expand Table' cause I couldn't find a good way to navigate.
The irony is that SUVs and pickup trucks do not need lights 137 cm above ground, but that height is perfectly legal in too many countries. These vehicles are a menace and should be legislated out of existence.
It's insane to me that I as a 16 year old was allowed to drive an F350 pulling a 40ft trailer on a standard license.
I'd be all for exemptions to any rules for anyone who proves ownership of a working farm or ranch but you can bet that no regulation of any kind will ever be enacted to curb the disaster that CAFE rules caused to "car" size.
IMO, this sort of thing should work more like the way fair use works. A cop could pull you over for a traffic violation, ticket you, and then when you go to court you push the defense of "I'm a farmer and I was doing farm work" to get the missing license charge dropped (but you'll still likely end up with a traffic ticket to pay).
Generally speaking, cops aren't patrolling farming roads anyways so you'd really not need almost any exemption in place.
I'm not a big EV person, but afaik EVs don't have efficiency standards and so they don't have to conform to CAFE footprints, so we can get compact vehicles again, hopefully. Up to manufacturers to put them for sale, and people to actually buy them, of course.
Plus, giant EVs have more room for batteries and most Americans think 300 miles of range is necessary even if they drive 20 miles a day and even if they can charge at home!
This is a huge hole in the regulatory regime. It doesn't make sense to be as wasteful with electrons as we are with hydrocarbons. Sure the electron can be generated cleanly or with higher efficiency, but that doesn't negate the pursuit of encouraging increased utility.