Is a near ideal example of why free markets can lead to a worse overall result, yeah. Everyone wants to be individually safer, this is all a reasonable trajectory brought on by incremental steps in that direction.
We desperately need regulation. The market won't turn itself around, it'll just ensure the ones that are helping are killed the quickest.
The question is, what regulation? If you just try to ban or heavily tax larger vehicles, well, there are legitimate reasons to have those sometimes. Businesses need trucks and you don't want heavy taxes on innocent small businesses. Parents involved in school activities are regularly transporting entire sports teams etc. and putting a dozen kids in two vehicles is safer and more efficient than three or four vehicles.
So you need some way to distinguish the people buying large SUVs for these reasons from the people buying them out of schlong insufficiency, but nobody seems to have a good way to do that.
Off the top of my head - a large vehicle license, which comes with increased taxes or fees or something. Businesses that require those vehicles can pay it. And maybe we can even have waivers or something for small businesses, or non-profits, or households with 4+ kids.
> Businesses that require those vehicles can pay it.
This is not distinguishing between them at all, it's just adding a new tax that makes everything cost more.
> And maybe we can even have waivers or something for small businesses, or non-profits, or households with 4+ kids.
At which point everyone claims to be a small business. Also, if someone has one child rather than four, that doesn't mean they aren't regularly transporting that child's entire sports/drama/music group to events.
> it's just adding a new tax that makes everything cost more.
Yeah, this is how you discourage people. The license on top is super inconvenient too. I mean, who wants to go to the DMV and take a special test just for their ego booster?
> At which point everyone claims to be a small business
I imagine you have hard requirements, it's not like anyone can just say so.
> Also, if someone has one child rather than four, that doesn't mean they aren't regularly transporting that child's entire sports/drama/music group to events.
Okay. But are they? Because the situation we're in right now, currently, that we're trying to solve is that the average number of passengers in a vehicle is 1.5 and the majority of vehicles are SUVs and trucks.
I don't know, I guess those people can just pay the tax. Or, better yet, don't buy a vehicle to optimize for 1% of your driving time.
If this discourages car pooling, I say "meh". Car pooling is already basically not a thing, and pretty much all trucks can only hold 5 people. You know... the same amount of people as a compact sedan.
We desperately need regulation. The market won't turn itself around, it'll just ensure the ones that are helping are killed the quickest.