[hennell]

There's an interesting bit in car guys vs bean counters where the author recalls the new regulations mandating a smaller average size car. US manufacturers had to make much smaller cars to lower their average. But US customers just weren't interested. They wanted big cars, not just new cars. Japanese manufacturers (who were already lower then the regulated average) stepped in and built new big cars.

Not totally similar to your point as safety regs would be more equal, but it was an interesting revelation to me (especially as here in the EU small cars are much more desirable) that really market demands are as much of a driver of these things as manufacturer production.

Regulation has to be in the right place too, ideally giving the real trade off to the consumer. (the book suggests that if America taxed fuel more like the rest of the world so you didn't have such cheap gas, car efficiency would become a much bigger selling point, leading to more demand for smaller less ridiculous cars). But I suspect that would change less the demand for low gas cars, and more the demand for low gas tax politicians.

[armada651]

It's an arms race though, most people prefer bigger cars because it makes them feel safer from all of the other big cars on the road.

Also it was actually the gas efficiency regulation that started the arms race, because big trucks were exempt from the regulations so car manufacturers started pushing more people towards buying trucks instead of sedans.

[two_handfuls]

Right. So a good step to improve safety would be to apply the same rules to trucks and cars.