admittedly the heavier they are the more likely you are to be on the winning side in an accident though

Only if you wear that seat belt...and the 4wd don't roll over.

And if all vehicles were lighter?

We need to find a way of having fuel efficiency standards that mandate constant increases in efficiency - which will inevitably translate into lighter vehicles...

Good luck with that. What we do not have at all, is a culture where necessary (desirable, urgent, rational) changes to the way things are designed, made, consumed, and accounted for, can happen. Those that control the means of production have immense power, and there does not seem to be any way that they, or society in general, is prepared to change existing power structures (the rhetoric of the free market, consumer choice, and competition). All of those should be in scare quotes of course.

A political party that went to the electorate with a strong platform to address climate change, address massive resource degradation (water, soil, native flora and fauna, for example), and to propose ways to mitigate peak energy, would not be elected if the powers that be (and their media) did not support any shift towards a command economy.

Especially if solutions require greater government intervention, increased legislation, economic slow-down, job losses in specific sectors, or wider taxing powers. A carbon-trading system is a sop, nothing more. I remain extremely pessimistic that we will address any of our immense problems with rational strategies that work ... I doubt we will even get the chance to try them out in time.

WA cannot (or will not) even address the staggering level of wheatbelt soil salinisation, to take but one example. We will do things the way we always have: denial, crisis management, blame-shifting, and political in-fighting. And wars of course.