This is an indirect result of two factors: increased fuel efficiency and improved safety testing. Both were good things, but the implementation needs to be impr

This is an indirect result of two factors: increased fuel efficiency and improved safety testing. Both were good things, but the implementation needs to be improved. Late 90s / early 2000s fuel efficiency standards (probably following lobbying from GMC) set much more lax fuel standards for trucks than for sedans. The auto companies responded to regulation by heavily marketing their less fuel efficient trucks and SUVs. The size of trucks themselves increasing, however, is a result of safety testing, where obviously larger vehicles are safer for their passengers, albeit more dangerous for everyone outside the vehicle. Fuel efficiency standards should have been set as a function of average vehicle occupancy, rather than vehicle weight and type, which incentivises larger vehicles. Safety standards should require survival of pedestrians and passengers in other vehicles, at least for common scenarios where the driver of the vehicle under test is usually at fault.