They should just be banned period. I haven’t seen any reasonable arguments for why a ute needs to be 50% larger today than it was in the 90’s.

Otherwise there should be taxes based on size, weight, and fuel efficiency. It only makes sense as the larger the vehicle, the greater its impact on traffic and parking space, the more damage it does to the road, and the more damage it does to the environment.

True, but this should at least discourage people from buying these vehicles, and collecting some revenue in the process (which in the case of cash starved local councils is a good thing). It would take a federal government effort to ban these vehicles altogether I suspect.

Some bullet points from the linked study:

• Children are eight times more likely to die when struck by a SUV compared to children struck by a passenger car.

• Passenger cars are underrepresented in fatal pedestrian and pedal-cyclist fatalities.

• SUVs struck 14.7% of the pedestrians and pedal-cyclists studied, but were involved in 25.4% of the fatalities.

• Blacks are overrepresented as pedestrian and pedal-cyclist crash victims.

• Hospital charges are highest among those struck by pickup trucks, and those aged 65 and older.

• Regulatory interventions may help reduce the harm caused to human bodies by large motor vehicles.

But yeah, perhaps a quick summary in the main article would have been helpful.

To be fair the first time they mention “safety impacts” the words “safety impacts” is actually a link to a study on the subject. It would be better to include a brief summation since no one is going to pause reading an article in the first paragraph to read a study.