An easy first step would be making licensing more strict. Where I am there are classes of licence for passenger vehicles, larger transport trucks, busses, and finally semis/lorries. Each step up requires further testing and more stringent requirements.
I feel like it’d go a long way if your typical American pickup was moved up a class. How many people just wouldn’t bother with a big truck if it meant another driving test and visit to the DMV? Any vehicle over X height, X length, X wheelbase, whatever would become a “commercial truck”. Smaller trucks from back when they made small trucks wouldn’t meet the requirements.
Sadly I don’t think a politician running on a policy like that is winning an election anytime soon.
What’s bizarre is how backwards the current incentives are. Not only are American pickups the same class as normal cars, they are incentivized for the car industry because of their exemption from the fuel efficiency rules
They recognize exactly why people prefer larger vehicles and then completely miss why driving a smaller vehicle puts you at a disadvantage against those bigger vehicles. People would of course become very angry if they’re told their humongous, gas-guzzling, tank of a vehicle were illegal to operate on the road especially only 7 months into an 84 month loan.
How then to reasonably phase these giant cars out? They’re directly more dangerous to everyone but the person sitting inside.
The main thing is to remove the exemption of “light truck” for regulations that make suvs and trucks so much cheaper to manufacture for auto companies.
As for local areas, they can increase property taxes for heavy vehicles, to disentivse owning them.
We need to tax the externalities of antisocial behavior.
Require safety standards to test the damage vehicles cause to pedestrians and cyclists, including women and children. Tax vehicles based on how dangerous they are to others on the road.
Tax vehicles for the damage they do to the roads. Heavier vehicles destroy roads.
Create an aggressively high truck and SUV personal vehicle ownership tax that increases every year. Tie that tax rate to not only the vehicle’s ecological and public safety impact, but also to the owner’s income (so that you don’t have rich fucks just buying them anyway).
Create buy-back programs that offer reasonable market prices and trade-in values for used trucks and SUV’s, which would be held as stock for sale to industry and ag, which would be exempt from the above taxes or taxed at lower rate.
Tightly regulate automobile financing so you can no longer offer loans that outlive large dog breeds.
Subject all consumer motor vehicles to fuel economy standards with no bullshit exceptions.
Yes, this will inconvenience a lot of people with first world problems, but you’ll never fix anything if your primary goal is to please everyone.
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