So if the theory is that passenger vehicles are getting heavier cause of a Red Queen Race regarding collision safety why on this particular timescale? Like, to give it a shot, collision safety wasn’t a selling point until after Nader (my mom had an ‘80s Volvo! I remember crash test dummies being iconic!) but fuel efficiency pressure from post-embargo gas prices and regulations kept that from translating into weight and instead channeled to technology \u2013 crumple zones, airbags, collision avoidance systems \u2013 but the drag factors have decreased and technology’s hit diminishing returns?
Plausible, but there’s a lot of wavy stuff in there it doesn’t cover. Why did typal high-capacity family vehicles go from station wagons to minivans to SUVs in my lifetime? Why are modern pickups so big I keep thinking I’ve lost Darwin behind them at the supermarket? Was it just that from early long-nosed coupes until tailfin land yachts, before post-oil crisis compacts, cars didn’t have any practical room to get bigger? What was up with Hummers, anyway?
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