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A pickup or SUV isn’t needed to stay safe - especially not when all other cars are compact.

This reasoning reminds me of the tragedy of the commons.

This is totally tragedy of the commons reasoning. There exist big cars on the road, so I need a bigger one to protect myself against them. I'm half-surprised that no one is selling civilian-use APCs at this point.

Pfft. I couldn't weave, pass and lanechange through the usual shitty traffic if my vehicle was that unmaneuverable.

Isn't the traffic shitty (and dangerous) precisely because of the occasional people "weaving, passing and lanechanging" like crazy?

When I make a right-hand turn onto the far-right lane of a divided highway with four lanes in my direction, and over the next three blocks, three lanes become right-turn-only (gradually narrowing the road down to one lane) but I need to not make any of those right turns?

You bet I need some fancy footwork to avoid being forcibly detoured. And you bet that once I'm in the correct lane, I make a point of emulating the people far in front of me, by almost-tailgating the person directly in front of me.

In such a tragedy, any one person's most logical action is to obtain as much of the price-controlled commodity as possible, before the price returns to normal.

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