[ineedasername]

If there was going to be a regulatory move in this space, it's proximity & awareness systems and better visibility that seem to make more sense, than a tax of some kind. These will actually contribute to safety, while a tax would at best be a very minor and indirect influence on market forces.

[giantg2]

Generally, trucks do get taxed more through higher registration fees, and indirectly through fuel taxes.

[ineedasername]

That's all pretty irrelevant because most of that ends up going to various sorts of highway maintenance or general operating budgets for states, not making cares safer.

Regardless, let's see how that plays out in actual taxes: Where I'm at the difference between registering an F150 and a Honda Accord is about $20. (personal, non commercial) Looking at California it's not much different. In Texas they're the same cost, but let's say the average is $20 and do some back-of-the-envelope math:

Registration Fees:

--About 11M vehicles sold each year classified as a light truck (pickup/SUV) = $220M in reg. fees.

--About 40M used cars sold each year. About 50% of Carvana use cars are pickups or SUVs, so that's another $400M.

--Total: $640M

Fuel taxes:

--Average tax of $0.35/gallon

--average of 13,500 mile/year driven

--MPG for Honda Accord = 38, 26 for an F150 for a difference of about 164 gallons/year.

--About 230M eligible drivers in the US. About 88% own a car. About 30% of all vehicles on the road are SUVs/light truck = 61M on the road.

--61M * 164 gallons * $0.35/gallon = $3.5B

Total taxes: $4.15B in taxes extra collected on larger vehicles across the entire country, but none of it goes towards making large vehicles safer.

Even if that was doubled, what would the government spend it on to make cars safer? I can't think of much.

Meanwhile it's becoming harder & harder to find cars that don't have various automatic sensors & safety features, and all manufacturers have agreed to add AEB by 2022. Browsing manufacturer site & dealer inventory, a very large # also have rear-park-assist (which detects pedestrian) either by default, or as an upgrade that is already included on most vehicles in dealer inventory.

If we combined these trends with requirements for greater visibility as well, the combination would do a lot more than an increased tax .