[roleplayer]

The massive car sizes we see are because of government emissions regulations to begin with. That’s right, the “big truck to make up for lack of X” phenomenon was actually caused by people attempting to regulate how trucks are made without thinking through thr consequences.

People who reach for regulations tend to be bad with incentives, not always, but usually.

[abakker]

to add to this, there is a hilarious plague of "second order" thinking in government, while ignoring first order. We got into this mess with things like the 21 year old drinking age. The federal government doesn't have the authority to make that rule, so instead they provide a highway funding incentive to the states who offer it.

The issues is that it has become the federal government's only tool - provide incentives and try to encourage behavior which can't be directly regulated. As a result, they are basically left with cash handouts to get what they want and must fund those rules out of taxation or the deficit.

if we wanted to have a more sane system, we'd remove second order incentives in favor of direct first order regulations. but, that would require constitutional amendments which are unlikely to pass.

[Dracophoenix]

> if we wanted to have a more sane system, we'd remove second order incentives in favor of direct first order regulations. but, that would require constitutional amendments which are unlikely to pass.

I detest both arguments. The drinking age didn't stop under-21's from drinking. They just don't do it publicly. You're correct in that governments shouldn't use legislative carrots and sticks to influence state policies. But I disagree that direct federal control is a replacement for philosophical reasons as well as the fact that the government already tried the more honest approach of passing a constitutional amendment to regulate the consumption of alcohol only to have it blowback on them. And due to the resulting backlash and unenforcability, the government passed another amendment to deregulate it. As the old saying goes, prohibition doesn't work.

[abakker]

I used alcohol as an example, and should have been more clear that it was _just_ an example.

I'm sure you and I could find common ground where we believe that carrot/stick approach is dumb, but that some rule should be passed.

[Dracophoenix]

With regard to alcohol, the government, federal or state, shouldn't have a place in it.

With respect to other matters, it would depend on the circumstances. In the context the article at hand, I doubt writing legislation dictating that a car should be only so high and only so wide would be effective. Legally, speaking, even if such a law were passed, it would be unenforceable. It would hurt the automotive industry and kill hundreds of not thousands of jobs. And with regards to safety, smaller cars are more cramped wouldn't fit a wide-berthed family of five.

Countries with low vehicular fatalities per person make it difficult for anyone but the rich to own a car in the first place usually via high import taxes or a yearly vehicle licensing or excise tax. But that goes back to our original point in that direct policies would immediately receive pushback and legal challenges where as more indirect policies that "solve" the immediate and medium-term issue but will eventually cause economic consequences that fully aren't grasped until it's too late. Both approaches eventually lead to undesirable outcomes.