> It's government regulations that made trucks get this big

This is presented incredibly dishonestly in this context. It's well understood that automakers had their grubby little hands all over emissions regulations in the late Bush admin. They spent oodles of cash, tons of lobbyist time, and BEGGED for the exclusions for trucks that made complete sense at the time for TRUCKS, as in, pickup trucks used by laborers that needed the power and relaxed emissions standards that they asked for. And then, once that was done, set about changing 2/3 of their sales into trucks, so they could continue selling ever larger vehicles at ever higher prices with ever worse fuel economy.

> most people simply buy what is available in the form factor they like. Trucks are the most popular form factor in the United States (with pickups a close second)[1]

Which is directly traceable to substantial and aggressive marketing pushes by the American auto industry to shove trucks and SUV's down American's throats, because they could sell them for higher prices than the vans and station wagons that were already popular at the time.

And even now, the solution proposed for all the issues these oversized stupid machines cause, is more sensors, more cameras, more safety features that, OH WOW, they get to charge more money for! No way!

> and the manufacturers keep making the cars bigger because of the poorly written CAFE laws[2].

Again, the way this is framed posits that the CAFE standards were flawed output by the legislators themselves, and not the result of back and forth negotiations with the auto industry for decades prior.

> I, and I suspect most Americans with pickups, would prefer to purchase one the size of a '90s F-150 as compared to the monsters of today but manufacturers can't or won't sell me one.

Except now after decades of this shit, even if you can find a smaller vehicle, many consumers have (correctly) identified that their neighbors are driving suburban panzers, and not having one yourself puts you and yours at an elevated risk in a collision. Tons of people have reasonably sized vehicles in this country, and if you get t-boned by some jack-off in a lifted F-350 driving one, there is a not-insubstantial chance you're going to die, because those vehicles are not designed with safety in mind: they are designed to appeal to a marketing demographic that has been created: the modern man seeking to reclaim his masculinity because his accounting job doesn't let him imagine himself a hunter seeking the mammoth well enough, or whatever the fuck.

> Making up some macho strawman to attack actually obfuscates the problem and makes discussing solutions more difficult.

It isn't making up strawmen, it's pointing to a strawman manufactured by the auto industry that needs to be burned. The ONLY reason all these stupid machines are out driving today is because we as a society permit it. That can be changed. We are allowed to simply say that if you cannot demonstrate competence to handle a vehicle of this size, you do not get to drive one, end of discussion. It's not like we haven't had multiple classes of drivers licenses since basically the inception of drivers' licenses for this exact reason: because handling a 55 foot LTL truck is harder than handling a Honda Civic.

This is a cultural issue as much as it is a political one. You can't just not take into account the long-term and well documented history of the auto industry and it's involvement here, any more than you can not take into account the documented history of the NRA/gun manufacturers with regard to our gun problem.