2 ms·

doesn't make a lot of sense to put this on manufacturers. The safety aspect is a collective action problem. When only one person buys a smaller car they're not

doesn't make a lot of sense to put this on manufacturers. The safety aspect is a collective action problem. When only one person buys a smaller car they're not safer, so you need to get everyone to change. Next big factor is regulation and protectionism. Read a depressing blog about the effort a guy had to go through to get a mini truck from China to the US and he couldn't even drive it on some roads. Importing the thing cost almost as much as the truck. Also the US still has no carbon market, putting a higher price on fossil fuels creates an actual incentive to buy more efficient cars. These are structural issues, asking manufacturers to just make different cars won't magically create demand for them.

tzs 3y ago
> The safety aspect is a collective action problem. When only one person buys a smaller car they're not safer, so you need to get everyone to change. The difficulty with getting people to agree to that is that when it comes to crashes between two cars, or between one car and some stationary object like a big tree, "everyone has a smaller car" is less safe than "everyone has a larger car". "Everyone has a smaller car" would be safer for pedestrians and cyclists, but something like 80% of deaths involving cars are from cars hitting cars or cars hitting stationary objects accidents so that's probably going to be the priority for most people.