this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2025
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American safety standards have led to an insane game of cat an mouse wherein I need my car to be bigger to keep me safe. But my bigger car is more dangerous to you. So you need a bigger car to protect yourself from my dangerously large car. But now I need a bigger car to protect me from your giant car.
And 30 years later everyone is driving around a 60 thousand dollar crumple zone so tall it can't see pedestrians over the hood and needs a 6 liter engine just to move.
Same for child seats. Planning on having 3 kids under 10? Better plan on a truck or van with a 3rd row, because somehow, you can't fit seats 3 small children in the back seat of a family sedan or crossover.
Is it really the safety standards? I thought it was a combination of all the stupid "truck" exceptions and our equally stupid culture where the iamverybadasses choose their 3-ton grocery and kindergarten shuttles out of fear because they want to "win" any collisions.
There's no one thing. I'm sure everyone is trying to game regulations.
But, I'd wager a Honda Civic is not getting a truck exceptions. Yet a 2025 Honda Civic is 20% wider and 25% longer than a 1978. The weight has gone from 800 kilos to over 1400.
Crumple zones need space to crumple into. Side curtain airbags require bulkier pillars. Impact beams need space making bodies wider. Instead of a sheet metal box on a chassis we have a frame reinforcing the entire cabin. We need room for crushable hood braces and plastic engine shrouds for when we hit pedestrians. It's all good stuff, but you have to buy an inch or two for this, an inch or two for that...
Eventually a 2025 Honda Civic is both longer and wider than a 1990 Toyota Hilux pickup.
Ah, yeah it's affected everything across the board. But with the US context and you talking about giant vehicles, $60K vehicles, and 3 rows, I thought we were focused on the larger end of the population as a whole.
I bet the crash safety design of the current honda civic was definitely influenced by the truck regulations and that whole market driving the large end even larger.
Funny enough, I am eagerly awaiting the official announcement of the 2026 MX-5 of all cars.
pretty sure a lot of that is due to american's needs to pack a bunch of stuff into their car. we prioritize cabin space. European cars meet the same safety standards and yet aren't nearly as large.
This
I agree with you that this has happened, but it is far from the only reason that vehicles have increased in price. Now almost every vehicle comes with power windows, power locks, power mirrors, at least one if not multiple built in tv screens, wireless locks and keyless ignitions. Not to mention alot of manufacturers building in computer hardware/software to track user information and installing propietary parts/hardware/software designed to keep your local mechanic from doing repair work and forcing you to use dealership mechanics at 3-4 times the cost.
All of it is being done because it makes more money. Mark my words, if they repeal safety regulations, it will definitely reduce the safety of our vehicles, but it will have little to no effect impact on prices. I would wager my left nut that auto manufacturers are chomping at the bit to get this deregulation put through so they can reduce their cost of vehicles by increasing the danger of the consumer, but wont reduce the prices by a fraction of what they are "saving," then will proceed to have record profits while using lobbyists to pay off our crooked politicians.
I noticed the current admin has contempt for anything that benefits the common man, and is looking for financial excuses to remove any "subsidy" type of regulation that could be protecting people from dying for the crime of being poor and/or having weak genes
Yay capitalism, right?
"On a long enough time line, everyone's survival rate drops to zero."
The really sad thing is your bigger car isn't even really safer for you. It's just cheaper for the manufacturers (since they can classify it as a truck which has less strict safety and efficiency regulations) and a danger to others.