This is the story of how the cycling association measured streets in Bruges and got what they wanted - a cycling zone - 5 years after the initial campaign
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The short version is that CAFE standards classified vehicles by footprint (track width times wheelbase), allowing larger light trucks and SUVs to meet looser fuel economy targets than smaller passenger cars, incentivizing automakers to upsell bigger models for higher profits and easier compliance.
@comfy @ray
I’m not aware of any recent pro cycling laws.
As far as stupid large trucks/cars, I think it’s demand more than auto company push.
Personally, and maybe this isn’t the case elsewhere, I’ve heard no-one ask for cars/trucks to become larger. 0 demand.
@comfy
The customers go into dealers and pass over the smaller vehicles and buy the much larger vehicles.
At least in the US context there’s a tax reason for it and the auto lobbyists seemed to ask for it.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24139147/suvs-trucks-popularity-federal-policy-pollution
@ray
Vox has a paywall, but my quick search showed only a deduction for vehicles for business use.
The short version is that CAFE standards classified vehicles by footprint (track width times wheelbase), allowing larger light trucks and SUVs to meet looser fuel economy targets than smaller passenger cars, incentivizing automakers to upsell bigger models for higher profits and easier compliance.
If you want to read the original article one of these should do it for you: https://web.archive.org/web/20240428101847/https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24139147/suvs-trucks-popularity-federal-policy-pollution https://archive.is/LJuSN