The more I think on this, the more I wonder if it’s truly unpopular “here,” but it certainly is in public.
Headlights should be no more than 2 feet off the ground. Yes, your SUV will look dumb. No, you won’t be able to see as far. But you also won’t be blinding everyone.
And no, adjusting angles does not solve this for monster trucks in the US.
Why a tax instead of a ban?
“Sure, you can have this dangerous, child-crushing, planet destroying machine that externalizes most of its costs to society, and you can use it in public and be a dick with it, but only if you are rich.”
I just feel taxation is a better mechanism to change behavior than outright bans. Both are authoritarian solutions but optional taxes that can be avoided are less so. I favor these solutions over bans for the same reasons I prefer harm-reduction tax-and-regulate schemes over drug prohibitions.
In addition the tax money can be earmarked to do some good, perhaps rebate programs to encourage right-sized vehicle purchases.
As an example, extra taxes on sugary sodas reduce consumption most places they have been tried.
Recent study on sugar taxes: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9161017/
Cigarette taxes work too: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3228562/
