I hate this answer so much. The US has 300 million people with diverse interests. About 40% of the countries GDP is spend by the government and the rest is regulated.

With that money the government does A LOT of different things, from creating special interest groups to increase salad prices for farmers in <random state> to fighting a long term geopolitical battle with China.

You can vote a couple of times, meaning you can make like 4 choices a year to effect those things. Meaning your opinion about ALL of these has to be condensed to like 4 choices, and those choices are incredibly restricted by a party system.

And with almost none of the 300 million people car safety regulation is in the Top 100 of issues they care about means that the democratic process has almost zero direct impact on a particular topic.

In your average State: Senator, US Rep, State upper house, State lower house, President, Governor, DA, State AG, State Treasurer, Lt. Governor, County Rep, City Rep, probably the Mayor (depending on if strong or weak Mayor), Sheriff and/or Police Chief and a few others. You might even get to deal with ballot propositions! The exact makeup of your ballot will vary from State to State, but there’s usually at least 7 or 8 positions you’re directly electing (notably Nebraska has a unicameral legislature, so no upper house).

We get choices. A lot of choices. The people concerned with prosecuting jaywalking aren’t the same people concerned with prosecuting trade wars. I jaywalk all the time in my city, at red lights, outside crossings, across the intersection, and often right in front of the police as long as I keep my wits about me and don’t do so in a way liable to get me killed.

Maybe stop looking to DC for all your legislative needs unless you live there. We need far less centralization of power, not more.