The Left Wants To Take Your Truck Because It’s Big And Scary

Unlike with the right to bear arms, there is no constitutional amendment protecting our right to own vehicles — other than a generally recognized right to move about freely (Crandall v. Nevada, 1867) — and, with almost all roads owned by the government, this could become a problem. 

The ongoing campaign against terrorism is now in full swing. “Big Truck” — or, as we call them in Texas, simply “my truck” — is bound to lead to additional restrictions to “save the planet” And “save the children.”

The latest push against large pickup trucks takes two basic forms: They’re large and scary and hurt people, and they’re bad for the environment, especially with people not really needing them for anything practical.

SUVs and pickup trucks are three times more likely to injure or kill people in a collision than smaller cars.

NYC must adopt a weight-based tax in order to discourage the use of large and dangerous cars on our streets.https://t.co/IXWLSddDFN pic.twitter.com/N2MpuDCjbs

— Transportation Alternatives (@TransAlt) November 3, 2022

The large and dangerous argument goes like this: Americans only drive big trucks because Americans are vain, and big pickup trucks have become a status symbol, with mostly suburban owners citing their truck’s “ruggedness” and “power.” As further proof, detractors claim most of these large rides don’t even have a trailer hitch. 

Of course, one thing many Americans don’t much take a liking to is other people telling them what they must do with their purchases and lifestyle. I don’t own a large pickup truck — yet — but if these pearl-clutching busybodies don’t mind their business, I’m sorely tempted to go out and buy one. 

Child vs. Adult Deaths

As a result, after making some comments on Twitter and having an Ivy League liberal claim that large pickups are “behind the uptick in pedestrian deaths, especially little kids, and are obviously worse for the environment (both air quality affecting our health now and global warming affecting life more broadly)…so it hurts a lot of other people for no practical gain,” I decided to look into a key contention — that more “little kids” have been getting killed by big pickup trucks.  

I opened the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database on the unintentional deaths of pedestrians by motor vehicles via its WISQARS™ (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System) database and ran two series. One was pedestrian deaths, ages 0-14 from 2000 to 2020, and the other was pedestrian deaths from ages 18 to 85+ over the same period. 

What followed is very interesting. Contrary to the claims of some, pedestrian deaths among “little kids” have been steadily dropping since 2000. This might be due to a few factors. First, the use of alcohol while driving has been dropping. Second, as the CDC helpfully notes, alcohol was a factor in 46 percent of crashes resulting in a pedestrian death in 2019, but only about 30 percent of these involved the driver while 70 percent were due to