I wish shrinkflation worked on cars and trucks, they just keep getting bigger and bigger.

I think universal programs tend to have more public support.

A lot of the most dangerous roads are in… surprise surprise… lower income areas that tend to have a greater proportion of minorities. And traffic death disproportionally affects non rich/white demographics. Despite what people love to parrot, speed enforcement (yes even cameras) increases safety and reduce deaths. Cameras work, and are much cheaper than actual infrastructure investment. So it’s no surprise this admin wants to do something vaguely muh freedom that proportionally harms poor/brown people more. Bonus points if your average chode would assume cameras are DEI, which seems likely. We already have something worse - flock.

Right. One issue is that the US’s glidepath towards low GWP includes significant HFO usage (which is a PFAS) rather than speedrunning natural refrigerants which are the only sustainable long term solution. So we’ll likely have more warming, but less PFAS as a result of this, along with higher costs and more uncertainty. The focus needs to be on natural refrigerants though long term.

Height absolutely matters because frontal area, along with Cd, affects drag directly. Drag is the primary force that needs to be overcome at higher speeds per the road load equation. Your opinion has nothing to do with it, it’s all just basic physics. You’re right though that fuel economy has been mostly increasing for decades, but that is in spite of vehicle largess, not because size is irrelevant. Imagine how much better off we’d be if folks didn’t commute in trucks for no reason at all. And a big yes to transit, biking, and human centered development.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1237-may-9-2022-fuel-economy-all-vehicle-classes-has-improved