Personally I think that the highest blame is on those who are supposed to regulate it.
Even big-sized market actors like automakers aren’t going to adjust their profit-seeking to avoid systemic issues like “arms race on the road” unless they’re forced to: it is well known and more than proven in Economics that Negative Externalities like this (and like the most obvious example of a Negative Externality: Polution) are invariably created by market actors if it makes them more profit, unless they are actually forced otherwise by an external entity with more power than them.
If the Economic system is Capitalism, then don’t be surprised when the capitalists optimize their actions for personal upsides, and as bigger car mean more profits automakers will carry only pushing them unless they’re they’re forced otherwise.
Seems like what you are getting at is that the incentives are the root problem, which is true
And that means the regulators are not properly regulating
But I think when it comes to blame, it should primarily be pointed at the auto makers. If we rely on regulation for prosocial behavior, the regulations meant to limit the bad tend to become the target for the regulated.
IE They’ll just make trucks that are exactly the maximum allowed size, which does still need to be pretty big since there are legitimate uses for a massive trucks
So I think we should blame auto makers, and fix the incentives to fix the problem. What if they shared liability for pedestrians hit inside a blind spot? That would hit them in the wallet and make them think twice moving forward
Personally I think that the highest blame is on those who are supposed to regulate it.
Even big-sized market actors like automakers aren’t going to adjust their profit-seeking to avoid systemic issues like “arms race on the road” unless they’re forced to: it is well known and more than proven in Economics that Negative Externalities like this (and like the most obvious example of a Negative Externality: Polution) are invariably created by market actors if it makes them more profit, unless they are actually forced otherwise by an external entity with more power than them.
If the Economic system is Capitalism, then don’t be surprised when the capitalists optimize their actions for personal upsides, and as bigger car mean more profits automakers will carry only pushing them unless they’re they’re forced otherwise.
Seems like what you are getting at is that the incentives are the root problem, which is true
And that means the regulators are not properly regulating
But I think when it comes to blame, it should primarily be pointed at the auto makers. If we rely on regulation for prosocial behavior, the regulations meant to limit the bad tend to become the target for the regulated.
IE They’ll just make trucks that are exactly the maximum allowed size, which does still need to be pretty big since there are legitimate uses for a massive trucks
So I think we should blame auto makers, and fix the incentives to fix the problem. What if they shared liability for pedestrians hit inside a blind spot? That would hit them in the wallet and make them think twice moving forward