You can beat physics. Big cars means more energy to dissipate in a crash. If the regulators had half a brain they would of taxed cars based on volume + mass. Large cars also reduce visibility which further reduces safety. There has been a car size arms race for the past 30-40 years. Cars are getting bigger so you get an even bigger one to feel safe and have enough seat height to see around you.
They do tax cars based on weight (in the US). If your car weighs too little, it's a personal vehicle. If it's heavy enough to be "transportation equipment" (large SUV) you can get effective tax breaks by deducting its cost from your income to a much greater degree than for reasonable passenger vehicles[0].
For those surprised by this (as I was when I first heard about it), this is talking about Section 179, which allows someone to fully deduct the purchase price of heavyweight vehicles (e.g. a Ford F-150) if it’s used for business. These vehicles are also not subject to the pedestrian safety requirements that 3-box vehicles (sedans, etc) are in the US.
I don't think a heavyweight vehicle has been built since the 1930s, when they started building lightweight vehicles. Today, if you see a passenger vehicle referred to as heavyweight that is likely due to a marketing spin on how well it performs or the load it can carry. Even in that sense, a Ford F-150 is marketed as a lightweight and F-250 is a medium.
150 from f150 refers to its carting and load capacity.. not its actual weight. the weight difference between a 150,250,350 is not a very significant one.
This issue is a 150 is being used outside its original use case. And dose the job a Corolla is intended for. But with twice the weight and size.
Thank you. I know what the 150 stands for. But, it is not a heavyweight vehicle. That term refers to a type of vehicle that hasn't been made since the 1920s-1930s.
The conversation I replied to was about deducting "the purchase price of heavyweight vehicles (e.g. a Ford F-150)". A Ford F-150 is not a heavyweight vehicle.
I think in the context of this discussion heavyweight is defined by Section 179 as having a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating greater than 6000 lbs. While the curb weight of a F150 is less, the GVWR is 6,010 to 7,150 lbs.
To add to that: light trucks imported from other countries are also subject to a 25% tariff known as the the "chicken tax"[1], and if I understand correctly, light trucks are subject to more stringent MPG standards to the point that auto manufacturers won't make them. Whether this latter is "environmental regulation gone too far" or just a matter of regulatory capture by an industry that doesn't want to compete in a market where small, cheap trucks are a thing that exists is a matter of interpretation, I suppose. I lean towards the regulatory capture interpretation myself.
> "...they would of taxed cars based on volume + mass."
yes, something i also heartily advocate (or any alternative that would effectively internalize these sorts of hidden costs). it goes beyond lives (although that's most important, obviously) to things like how big our paved surfaces are, how much space we devote to parking, and how far apart everything is.
This proposed approach of taxes based on volume+mass also addresses the problem of getting funding for road repairs.
For a specific example of how much better that approach would be compared to what we have now, let me pick WA state (because that's where I live, so I am familiar with how it works here).
In WA, road repairs are funded through gasoline tax. There is one big problem with that: EVs. EVs don't use gas, so they effectively don't pay the gas tax used for funding road repairs. As time goes, more people switch to EVs, and funding for road repairs dries down. To solve that problem, WA instituted a flat EV fee that you pay along with your early registration fee. It would have been ok, but that EV fee is flat, so it doesn't matter whether you drive the newest most powerful Tesla Model S or a budget entry-level Nissan Leaf, you pay the same EV fee. That flat fee is around $150 or so (iirc from the last year). This pushes the cost of annual registration fees for Nissan Leaf up by over 50%. Which is ridiculous, given it is a small and fairly light car, and it doesn't seem fair to charge it the same amount of fees for road repair purposes as you would charge a much larger car (because heavier vehicles cause more wear and tear for roads).
However, dropping the EV fee and switching registration fees to be based off mass+volume would solve this problem perfectly and would be much more fair, since mass is pretty much the primary variable directly affecting the amount of wear and tear caused to the road (in addition to how much the vehicle has been driven in a given year, but I don't think that charging annual registration fees based on your mileage is that much of a great idea for multiple reasons).
> because heavier vehicles cause more wear and tear for roads
That is true, the fatigue damage to the road goes up as the cube of the weight. What this means is that cars don't cause much fatigue damage to the roads - it's the trucks that do. A semi loaded to the legal limit causes 9,000 times as much damage as a car.
Really, the heavy loads need to go by rail, not highway.
It really puzzles me, even as a rail fan, how it is said that America’s freight rail is the envy of the world, but in every town there are abandoned tracks pulling right up to downtown warehouses.
It just seems like we let good infrastructure go to waste. It’s probably a tax thing, iirc the rail companies pulled up half their mileage because they were on the hook for property taxes on all that acreage (turned lots of double tracks into single tracks, and old single tracks into recreational bike trails)
You're right. The railroads have to pay all the costs associated with the tracks, the truckers shifted those costs onto everyone else.
> old single tracks into recreational bike trails
This is rampant in Seattle. They've not only torn up the tracks and turned them into bike trails, in order to install light rail, they've had to blast new right-of-ways at incredible cost.
> the fatigue damage to the road goes up as the cube of the weight
Slight correction - damage per axle is proportional to 4th power of load per axle. In practice it means slightly less than 4th power of weight (due to semis usually having more axles).
I believe the Washington state gas tax charged to standard internal combustion vehicles is much a lot about volume + mass; moving more stuff around less efficiently is going to inherently take more calories & therefore more tax will be paid.
That said, I've been really disappointed with the way the Washington state EV tax you reference was implemented. I mean, I'm just fine paying my fair share, but I should be taxed in the same manner as any other user of the same resources.
To that end, we have vehicle inspection stations & using those to check odometer readings on an annual basis would make for fair taxation.
As it is, I stopped paying registration, insurance and left our Leaf sitting in the driveway since the pandemic started because of the way this tax is levied.
Thanks for correcting me. I initially typed "something around $250", but I decided to google it first, and it turned out articles from about the $150 fee, without ever mentioning the $75 one. So I changed it to $150.
But after your comment, I went to check my most recent registration fees I paid last year, and you are fully correct. The total of all EV fees indeed comes out to $225.
The articles you read we're probably just from before the new fee was enacted. WA who's governor ran for president by calling out other candidates for not being green enough has the highest EV fees in the nation disincentivizing EV ownership. The irony is palpable.
I’m confused why you’re so willing to ignore mileage. A Nissan Leaf driven daily as a commuter car will do a lot more wear and tear on the roads than a Ford F-150 driven occasionally to the store.
We have the data to track mileage. Odometers are regulated and DMV already records mileage at various checkpoints. Why wouldn’t we use it?
Road damage follows a power-log rule based on vehicle mass/volume. The vast majority of road damage is caused by the largest of vehicles. A Nissan Leaf driven daily as a commuter car and an occasionally-driven F-150 both cause relatively little wear-and-tear on the road.
But, the few times the F-150 is driven, its mass is substantially more likely to cause road damage than the Leaf. [1]
Distance or Mileage involves an invasive inspection. It also runs the risk of violating privacy depending on how it's tracked.
Tracking it also just plain expensive, even if it's only required to report / measure mileage at time or distance intervals.
Arguably someone is _likely_ to drive however far they need to drive irrespective of the taxes and wear on any particular section of road is going to be roughly the same for any quantity of mass and axle count.
Speaking of mass, cargo vehicles should be taxed assuming some fixed duty load, like say 1/3rd of a year use at their maximum capacity rating, including towed equipment.
As noted above/below, most US states already track mileage via checkpointing (at sale, recurring inspection, registration renewal, etc). I’m not suggesting they track anything they aren’t already doing. Nor is the inspection invasive: you write down your mileage on the form and signing affirms you aren’t lying.
I also don’t intend that the mileage basis would be designed to stop driving. It just seems more fair to tax that way. Right now I pay a flat tax for my EV. If I drive daily, I’m probably underpaying my share of road maintenance. If I drive rarely, I’m overpaying. Gas taxes already roughly track usage because the more you drive / the bigger your car, the more gas it takes to move it around. So again, this isn’t changing how states conceive of road maintenance, just leveling the playing field for EVs and hybrids.
One can't determine distances driven outside of the tax jurisdiction based on that.
We have geofencing set in place for fuel tax incentives in Canadian provinces. Truck operators need to report that if they want part of their fuel tax money back. In Europe it's basically the same and gen2 smart tachographs already record GNSS coordinates at the start and end of the trip along with distance, as a non tampering measure, so there's data trail that can theoretically be used against you if you misreport. You are required by law to keep the tachograph files for two years and supply them to the control authority if needed.
In this case I think they just use the vehicle and refill documents. But the truck operators still need to report the drivers' working times per EU state because of the different labour laws in each EU state [3].
it doesn't need to be invasive or expensive. in my state I need to get an emissions test every few years, which simply consists of plugging into the ODB jack and reading some values. just take an odometer reading while you're checking the emissions data and charge based on the difference since the last reading.
I suppose you could argue that some people do significant driving off of public roads, but that's probably rare enough that special exemptions would be feasible.
all of this sidesteps the real issue, which is that personal vehicles do negligible damage to the road. road wear from commuter traffic is almost negligible compared to large trucks.
It does however lead to a lot more tampering with odometers.
In New Zealand diesel vehicles pay a significant tax per kilometre, and so there are a lot of people disconnecting odometers. There are even people for who their only income is from "rewinding" or reprogramming electronic odo readings (using a variety of techniques, sometimes cracking ECUs etcetera). There is some incentive to reduce recorded milage to enhance resale value, but a lot more incentive to reduce taxes. Edit: I could be a victim of selection bias here because most people will happily admit to ripping off the government while fewer people will admit to ripping of other individuals.
Large commercial vehicles have government mandated secondary odometers, which I haven't heard as much about tampering: maybe because tampering happens less, or maybe because the penalties are higher, or maybe it happens but I am not in the loop. Also the likelyhood of getting caught tampering truck odos is higher because trucks are stopped far more often than cars, and trucks are checked far more carefully.
> just take an odometer reading while you're checking the emissions data and charge based on the difference since the last reading.
An odometer reading won't say anything about where I drove that vehicle. If you take your car offroading or go on road trips a few times a year, that alone will skew the numbers heavily. With that in mind, odometer reading works fine for emission tests, but not so much for road damages. And constant vehicle location tracking reported to the government for the purpose of paying annual registration fees sounds pretty invasive to me.
But also, perfect is the enemy of the good. While the solution I proposed is not as comprehensive as the one that includes tracking mileage (and dealing with all the problems and issues associated with it), it is still significantly better than what we have now.
Despite the fact that the CA smog test is an absolute joke of an inspection (no inspection of tires, brakes, lights, etc.), it does in fact include an odometer reading.
I am totally ok with that too, personally. But there is quite a solid number of people in western WA (mostly Seattle area) who don't drive and vehemently oppose what you propose.
I gave up on trying to bring it up ever again irl, because I instantly get accused of "well, of course you would be in favor of that. Because you drive, so it benefits you when the costs of maintaining roads are amortized across everyone, including those who don't even drive."
Plus, the proposal of registration fees based on mass+volume seems to be better in all aspects, cause it is both more granular and more fair (which results mostly from the fact that it is possible due to it being more granular).
> Plus, the proposal of registration fees based on mass+volume seems to be better in all aspects, cause it is both more granular and more fair
It's more granular and still unfair.
Think about it this way, if all roads disappeared tomorrow, what would be your biggest problem?
In my opinion, it'd be food. I own a bicycle and live within cycling distance of a grocery store but where would they get the food?
The next thing that gets brought up is something like, "well, if it weren't for all those people driving that aren't shipping goods, road maintenance would be much less." That's true except I also benefit from commuters being able to work. All those commuters are busy driving to their jobs _at_ all the places that supply me with goods.
The idea that only the people that drive on the roads themselves are the ones using it is incredibly surface level thinking. In fact, we all know that the vehicles that do the most damage to roads are the large trucks shipping goods and the only reason they exist is to bring me stuff.
I don’t think we disagree? Everybody who drives pays taxes towards road maintenance. Right now, gas taxes apply roughly based on usage (more driving / more weight translates into more taxes paid). Basing directly on weight + mileage accounts for a world where EVs/hybrids exist, and so the gas tax no longer effectively covers those drivers.
> Everybody who drives pays taxes towards road maintenance.
If I sold my car I'd still benefit from the roads.
> Right now, gas taxes apply roughly based on usage
They apply based (roughly) on miles driven, not usage. Everything I buy was someway or another on a road in order for it to reach my house.
> Basing directly on weight + mileage accounts for a world where EVs/hybrids exist
I'm saying the instinct to further this line of thought is furthering the error. The benefit that I derive from roads overall is much greater than the benefit I get from them by directly driving on them. They basically make the economy work.
You’re right. It’s not so much the cars are larger that lowers visibility. It’s the design with the massive fronts and massive grilles that are higher than the average male’s height.
Some of these cars are really insane and it really worries me for the kids in these people’s houses.
"It’s the design with the massive fronts and massive grilles that are higher than the average male’s height."
This seems sensationalist unless you're talking about class A or B vehicles. Especially with your think-of-the-children remark. Do you have data to back it up?
I don’t mean this rudely — have you been around many trucks recently? They’re fucking massive. The newer F-150s, while maybe not 6ft tall at the front, easily obscure a child or a short person.
I have personally seen extremely close calls at gas stations/grocery store parking lots multiple times because of this.
“it’s really hard to see people, even adults, right in front of you”
Then they should say that instead of sensationalizing it.
"1) demonstrably true"
Do you have some evidence of this? 1) If you have awareness, you should see objects before they move into any blind spot. 2) Driver height in relation to the hood height plays an important role in visibility, which means that you can see things shorter than the hood height depending on the distance from the vehicle. 3) Many new larger trucks come with 360 degree cameras now, so the blind spots are not an issue.
I own a Dodge Ram 2500 and I can say that it's much harder to see things in front of you simply because the vehicle is so large. It's tough to park, tough to take through a small town, and hard to see out of in short-sight conditions. But it hauls a trailer, so it has a purpose.
I have a 1500 sized newer truck. I don't have any problems driving it in small towns or in big cities. I mean, you just have to take off the ham antenna and take it easy in the parking garages.
But do you really need to see things immediately in front of you? How would they even get there if they didn’t approach you from the front or sides, where you can see them? Most new vehicles also have sensors warning you of objects behind or in front of you, that beep loudly and warn you.
My truck does not have those sensors, and it is still large. When driving through downtown, kids and people like to jump out from between parked cars. That’s hard enough to catch in a sedan. I could definitely see myself accidentally hitting a pedestrian and not even noticing it.
I would say yes, you need to see things immediately in front of you. I’m not sure how that’s even a question. Beeps and sensors don’t save you in busy pedestrian environments, and being aware of your surroundings is absolutely crucial.
"I could definitely see myself accidentally hitting a pedestrian and not even noticing it."
Is this more hyperbole? I don't know how you could not notice hitting someone. You should feel/hear it, even for animals or objects way smaller than a person.
"I would say yes, you need to see things immediately in front of you. I’m not sure how that’s even a question."
How do you handle the normal blind spots in all cars? You handle this the same way - mental object tracking and awareness. It doesn't matter what car you're in, you can't see the pavement immediately in front of the tires, yet you can still avoid potholes.
Failure to check blind spots is the cause of many accidents on the road. They’re called blindspots for a reason. Large trucks, like mine, have blindspots closer and lower. I can mentally track as much as possible, but if a small person leaps out from between a parked car, they’re likely ending up getting squished. In a smaller car, lower to the ground, you can see small people without having to peer over the sides of the vehicle.
Even after years of driving it, I still have issues time to time with the size of the truck and curbs. The reality is: the larger the vehicle, the more space you have to watch out for, and the greater the chance that you mess up and hit something.
I’m glad you feel confident driving your truck, but you can’t deny the reality that bigger trucks are more challenging to manage in pedestrian environments.
People here seem to be obsessed with the 2-3 feet directly in front of the trucks, but comparing my truck to my wife's car, I can promise that I have much better visibility in many directions and fewer blind spots- between towing mirrors, sitting up higher, and perhaps most importantly, the windshield design doesn't leave gigantic blind spots at the 10 and 2 positions from the steep angle of the A pillars.
Except they have front, rear and side cameras. Our new F150 has 360° of visibility at low speeds. There are also proximity sensors that tell me if something outside the field of vision is coming my way from behind. It's also very liberal with the automatic braking, trying to stop in situations I'd barely slow for. And the automatic cruise changes based on GPS and stored speed limit data. It's by far the safest car I've ever driven, for both my family and those around us.
My friend's new Chevy 3500 has twice as many cameras as our F150. We both tow heavy things (I move large pets and rescue animals in various trailers.) and my bed is often filled with dirt or rocks.
What are you driving and how many pedestrian detection and collision avoidance systems does it have?
That's all great but it's of little help with a driver that is zoned out looking out the window in the wrong direction. About once a week I have a close call stepping into a crosswalk while a driver is in a hurry to make a right turn but is looking out to the left at the (stopped) traffic and ignoring people trying to cross the street. I live near a freeway on-ramp and as soon as the light goes green many drivers seem in such a rush to take off that I wonder if they are already mentally imagining themselves pulling onto the freeway.
> That's all great but it's of little help with a driver that is zoned out looking out the window in the wrong direction.
That will be the case with any vehicle, no matter the size. All the visibility in the world won’t help if the driver is looking in the wrong direction.
If I'm riding a bicycle, I am unlikely to hit a person coming up on my right no matter how focused I am on the traffic from the left. The bigger the vehicle, though, the easier it gets because there's less and less visibility of the pedestrian to pull my attention back.
If it's a visibility issue, then this really has nothing to do specifically with larger vehicles. Many small cars have less visibility than older ones due to smaller windows, larger pillars, and even lower perspectives. Take the newer mustangs, camaros, etc.
This is also my experience in my wife's small Mazda. The window placement or something makes it hard to check my right hand side blindspot. I had an easier time in a bigger / boxer Mitsubishi. I'm not really quite sure what it is but it feels like I can't see a spot I should be able to.
Granted I should be using the little blindspot mirror anyway.. but old habits
That's definitely not my experience. Maybe I'm just used to smaller cars, but when I am above it all, I feel more above it all. But familiarity aside, a higher nose objectively hides a lot more of a pedestrian, making them harder to spot.
The proximity sensors make a loud sound that’s hard to ignore so I don’t think the zoning out is as much a problem in newer vehicles. In many vehicles the car also takes action automatically to brake.
As a frequent pedestrian I also show some caution around vehicles. For instance I don’t charge out in front of a vehicle unless I’ve made eye contact with the driver. I don’t walk right behind vehicles while they’re pulling out in a busy parking lot. And so on. If you’re worried about safety there are many strategies to keeping yourself safe.
I can't make eye contact with a driver who's not looking my way, and it's not my responsibility to delay crossing the road for drivers who DGAF. Perhaps the proximity sensors do make a loud sound, but I've found that yelling 'hey' or hitting the car is sometimes the only means of getting some drivers' attention. It seems to me that if someone wants to operate a large heavy machine on wheels it's their responsibility to be alert while they're operating it.
It is indeed reasonable to careful since a motor vehicle easily outmatches a person, but if you look upthread my original point what many drivers are careless, and the cool technology like peripheral cameras does not always mitigate that.
I think that the trend towards larger vehicles may exacerbate the number of casualties caused by careless driving, and I wonder if all the safety features unintentionally foster a sense of complacency.
If there was going to be a regulatory move in this space, it's proximity & awareness systems and better visibility that seem to make more sense, than a tax of some kind. These will actually contribute to safety, while a tax would at best be a very minor and indirect influence on market forces.
That's all pretty irrelevant because most of that ends up going to various sorts of highway maintenance or general operating budgets for states, not making cares safer.
Regardless, let's see how that plays out in actual taxes: Where I'm at the difference between registering an F150 and a Honda Accord is about $20. (personal, non commercial) Looking at California it's not much different. In Texas they're the same cost, but let's say the average is $20 and do some back-of-the-envelope math:
Registration Fees:
--About 11M vehicles sold each year classified as a light truck (pickup/SUV) = $220M in reg. fees.
--About 40M used cars sold each year. About 50% of Carvana use cars are pickups or SUVs, so that's another $400M.
--Total: $640M
Fuel taxes:
--Average tax of $0.35/gallon
--average of 13,500 mile/year driven
--MPG for Honda Accord = 38, 26 for an F150 for a difference of about 164 gallons/year.
--About 230M eligible drivers in the US. About 88% own a car. About 30% of all vehicles on the road are SUVs/light truck = 61M on the road.
--61M * 164 gallons * $0.35/gallon = $3.5B
Total taxes: $4.15B in taxes extra collected on larger vehicles across the entire country, but none of it goes towards making large vehicles safer.
Even if that was doubled, what would the government spend it on to make cars safer? I can't think of much.
Meanwhile it's becoming harder & harder to find cars that don't have various automatic sensors & safety features, and all manufacturers have agreed to add AEB by 2022. Browsing manufacturer site & dealer inventory, a very large # also have rear-park-assist (which detects pedestrian) either by default, or as an upgrade that is already included on most vehicles in dealer inventory.
If we combined these trends with requirements for greater visibility as well, the combination would do a lot more than an increased tax .
It's hyperbole, but not by much. For example, a current model GMC Sierra HD Denali straight from the factory floor, before even considering aftermarket lift kits, has a hood line about 55" off the ground. Someone in a wheelchair or an average 10-year-old would be completely hidden from the view of the driver.
I own one of these and it's past ridiculous, and it's purely cosmetic. Yes the vehicle is large, but the styling is clearly responsible for a solid 6-12" of that height. Unfortunately if you need a vehicle to tow heavy loads, all new large trucks have this imposing front end.
I will also say I am rather disappointed in the technology at least on the GMC. For example, it has 360 degree cameras, but they don't show what's in front of you when you put it in drive for the first time. With the hood height of the thing, there's real risk that my kid is in front of the vehicle when I first start out. If GMC gave two shits about pedestrian safety they'd at least have an option to flash the front camera for 10 seconds after initially shifting into drive.
The parent said F150, which is a different level of truck and lower. They were also talking about full size adult males. Their statement was factually inaccurate.
Edit: why downvote? Should we just leave fake information circulate?
The closest proxy to this that I could find ("inside height" of the truck bed plus "open tailgate to ground") is 57.4-57.7" for a 2015 4x4, while the average adult male in the US is 5'9".
I think you need to check your math. 5'9" comes out to 69", giving you about 12" visible inches (more dpending on driver height and distance from vehicle).
It's OK to point someone is being hyperbolic but you are nitpicking many posts on the topic, with 16 comments so far. Maybe just ease back the reply button a bit.
Can you give me an example of the nitpicking? Mostly I've been pointing out incorrect information or explaining my prior comment because someone misread the comment or didn't read how it relates to the context set by the parent.
I don't agree. Most of the questions you are asking are narrowly pedantic, and you're essentially trying to judge your own case. At this point you have 51 comments out of 341, almost 15% of the thread and most of them trying to disqualify the opinions of others, often using rhetorical fallacies - whether you are aware of this or not.
You might find it helpful to re-read the HN guidelines about comments, and not approach every interaction with the strictness of an automatic parser. I will not be replying to further comments in this thread.
I don't know where you live, but in north america, trucks are getting ridiculously huge. They aren't sold like that, but aftermarket lift kits are extremely common; I fear that there's nothing sensationalist about GP. I live in Vancouver and trucks like this are quite frequent. In places like Texas and Alberta, they're downright common.
Speaking of children... little ones can walk directly under these trucks without bonking their heads
I'd agree, if they weren't so damned prevalent. Their dominating presence on the road absolutely factors into the real and perceived safety that is driving the race towards ever larger cars
But then we would be discussing a different topic - forbidding or further restricting aftermarket modifications instead of the current discussion about all trucks and larger vehicles. It seems the stock designs are reasonable and pass various safety considerations (stability, braking, etc) that the extremely modified versions would not.
No, that's not a different topic at all. If tax is based on vehicle size, then that tax should increase with aftermarket modifications to the vehicle's size.
Likewise, if an aftermarket modification violates vehicle regulations, that should be punished accordingly.
Is there any evidence that annual inspections prevent accidents? If I remember correctly, there's no significant difference in accidents cause by mechanical failure in states that have and do not have inspections.
I am sure they probably do not, crashes are mostly human error.
I was suggesting that I think it’s unlikely that a prohibition on any type of modifications could be effectively enforced when nobody is inspecting the vehicle.
Really seems like you're being deliberately obtuse here. We're talking about how the tax code might be changed to reverse the incentives that result in pedestrian deaths. The fact that this change hasn't happened already is not news to anybody here.
I think you should strap a GoPro to your belt some time and walk around a city. It's not think-of-the-children, not being able to see past vehicle fronts is what life is like for children.
"not being able to see past vehicle fronts is what life is like for children."
This wasn't being discussed. Driver visibility was the topic. How do you feel children not being able to see past the front of a vehicle affects their safety? Presumably they are crossing at crosswalks and intersections which would not have cars parked immediately around them and provides visibility.
> which would not have cars parked immediately around them
Something tells me you haven't visited an urban downtown lately. Vehicles are often parked right up to the edges of blocks, and that can make safe visibility difficult for adults, let alone children.
Well then maybe the police should do their jobs and start towing people parked within 15 feet of the intersection. It's a bit ridiculous to advocate for more laws when the current ones aren't enforced.
Edit: why downvote? In my opinion city design has more of an impact on safety than vehicle design.
Where do you live? Most states I know of have laws that specifically prohibit parking within 15 feet of intersections or hydrants regardless of if the curb is marked. It's not only for visibility but also for larger emergency vehicles to navigate.
In California it’s 15’ from a fire hydrant/station, 3’ from a wheelchair curb cut, and don’t block a driveway/crosswalk/sidewalk. If they want no parking at a corner they mark it red.
I guess it's mostly an east coast thing, as most of those states prevent parking within a specified distance of an intersection (or stop signs/lights). Or perhaps the cities in CA set it independently from the state.
Commercial vans like the Ford E-150 are large, but actually have very good visibility, much better than cars. This is due to the sloping nose, and the big fat side mirrors.
It makes sense, as business drivers using those vans often need to get in and out of tight spaces.
I have a full sized van. The viability out the front is good, back not so much. I helped a friend move some of her mothers stuff to storage. My friend rented a truck. Driving it my impression is the tall hood results an unacceptable blind spot. Is a child or a short women was in front you wouldn't be able to see them and that's not okay in my book.
That said viability of all cars is getting worse due to low slopped roofs and phat A pillars. As a friend says they're making cars safer for the driver at the expense of everyone else.
I think the EV Hummer is going to be interesting test case. It's something like 9 thousand pounds and a thousand horsepower, 0-60 time of 3.5 seconds.
Society generally accepts small, fast sports cars and slow, heavy trucks, but fast, heavy trucks are something new. Sports cars are accepted I think in part because they're not designed like battering rams. If a sports car is in a wreck it'll probably take severe damage, and the driver is at a pretty high risk of injury too even if the car has sophisticated safety features. With this new Hummer, someone could sneeze and plow through three lanes of traffic and come out unscathed. The consequences of risky behavior are falling disproportionatly on the people who don't drive big trucks.
(This argument applies also to EVs like the Model S to a somewhat lesser degree. They're also fast and heavy, but they at least don't look like something you'd smash through a roadblock in some action movie with, so they kind of get a free pass.)
Requiring a CDL for certain vehicles that are heavier, more powerful, and with high risk of damage or injury to others seems like a reasonable option to me.
"Larger pickups and SUVs should have much more stringent licensing requirements akin to a CDL."
Why only them? The basic driver test is a joke. They should make the testing more strict for everyone. The license requirements for a CDL are probably more strict than you think (health, alcohol, etc).
I'm aware of the requirements. I think it would be completely reasonable that you should be required to not be on the verge of going into a diabetic coma and not have BAC of .07 while driving an F-450.
BAC need to be under .04. It's worth mentioning that any marijuana use is instant disqualification, even if it's prescription. All sorts of medical conditions can be disqualifying. Even stuff like high blood pressure or COPD.
Then you have things like one must be 21 to cross state lines, and 18 to get a learner's permit. Some criminal history, like felonies, will prevent you from getting a license.
So it's a bit more than not being on the verge of a diabetic coma. And if those restrictions are a good idea for personal vehicles, then why not do that for everyone?
Totally agree. My dad bought an airstream and an F150 big enough to tow it. Driving that thing scared me. The thing was huge, visibility was poor, and consequences of error were magnified.
Driving an F150 super crew may seem scary at first but as someone who bought one 4 years ago (first truck) coming from a CRV, I found no problems with visibility.
Take a driving class then? If driving a truck scares you because you’re not used to it, how is that any kind of argument against other people driving them?
If you think the vehicle requires a special class to drive it well, then it seems like you agree with TheCoelacanth that more stringent licensing is required.
I currently drive a pickup - my first truck in the 25 years I’ve been driving. There’s no need for more stringent licensing - people just need to pay attention to the road and stop behaving like they’re on a formula 1 track. My soon to be 15 year old daughter has been learning to drive my pickup (crew-cab F-150) and has no difficulties at all driving it responsibly.
Driving and texting in a full size car or a crossover isn’t any less dangerous to pedestrians than texting and driving in a truck. Full blackouts (the effect of driving and texting) means full speed hits and reduced visibility is irrelevant.
> More mass means more force to impart at the same speed.
technically yes, but the effect of more mass in a vehicle-pedestrian collision is asymptotic. a small (3000 lbs) sedan is already 15-20x the mass of a typical human. the vehicle loses a very small fraction of its initial velocity to momentum transfer. it really doesn't make much difference if you double or triple the mass of the vehicle.
For equal range at equal volume, but there are of course lightweight designs that are good people movers, just can’t throw a bicycle into the back. One example is Aptera
Taxing status goods can be paradoxical (Veblen good): if people buy cars to show off their wealth, then many people may still buy large vehicles because they are a symbol of high wealth.
I guess it really depends on what was done with the extra taxes - there are a variety of ways money could be spent to reduce accidents (although the cynic in me says any extra tax wouldn't be used that way).
Why? You can kill a pedestrian, bicyclist, or motorcyclist just as easily with any of them. Why not improve the drivers test to actually test people? That should cut down on accidents across the board.
I agree that U.S. states should provide far more driver's training and have much stricter testing requirements before issuing licenses. We also need additional tiers to our licensing.
Two examples: In my state, a sixteen year-old with a newly minted standard car driver's license can by themselves legally operate a loaded 26' box truck, including one towing a trailer. With a motorcycle endorsement, they're permitted to pilot a bike with an engine of any displacement.
Ok? The motorcycle endorsement is already a separate tier. I don't think there's anything wrong with operating a box truck on a regular license. There's not that much difference in vehicle operation (still hydraulic brakes, etc), just some additional emphasis on load distribution, engine braking, and speed/braking distance - which is still important in many smaller vehicles. I do think the regular license test should be more rigorous, since it doesn't even cover these topics sufficiently for the smaller vehicles.
> Enough seat height to see around you.
Almost like they are trying to help with visibility for pedestrians.
No, vehicles should not be taxed based on size. There should be an even and fair road usage tax. Traditionally, that has been in the form of fuel taxes. Furthermore, vehicle sizing has been driven by safety features inside and out, crumple zones, improvements for side-impact, and airbags tucked in every interior crevice. Those vehicles that work in a city are not the vehicles that work for the 95% of the US landmass that is considered rural.
> Traditionally, that has been in the form of fuel taxes.
The fuel tax has three major issues:
- the US one is a flat fee not indexed to inflation and has not increased since 1993, so the purchase power of it has gone down as well as its percentage of the sale price since gas prices have risen a lot since 1993. no politician at the federal level is brazen enough to suggest actually raising the gas tax and hitting Americans in the pocketbook. In fact the fury is so bad that Massachusetts voters repealed inflation indexing for its state gas tax, because everyone wants the better roads but no one wants to pay for them.
- the wear and tear on the roads is not linear with weight. The federal government estimates that one 18-wheeler causes the same amount of road damage as 9,600 cars. The relationship between fuel price and road damage (which is what ultimately impacts the maintenance expense) is not reflected in a gas price even if trucks are less fuel efficient.
- the decrease in gasoline needed. Fuel efficiency is very good, and transitioning away from fossil fuels even better, but those cars and trucks will end up paying less money while causing the same amount of road damage as they did before.
> fuel price and road damage is not reflected in a gas price even if trucks are less fuel efficient
It’s almost like you’re saying a fuel tax shouldn’t incentivize fuel efficiency. I am saying it should. Broadly, heavier vehicles do definitely burn more fuel, hence why diesels are more prevalent with heavier workloads.
well it depends on what the gas tax is for. If the gas tax is to pay for road maintenance, then ideally the gas tax for a given vehicle should be commensurate with the amount of road damage that we then have to pay for through maintenance. the correlation however is not nearly strong enough between the tax and road damage, so the tax for heavier vehicles should be hiked significantly.
if you want to charge a carbon tax to dissuade burning fossil fuels that's another thing entirely, but the gas tax has never really been designed to do that, it's always been for road maintenance. Electric vehicles don't just become weightless on roads.
Or alternatively focus on smart safety features like automatic radar-triggered braking and pedestrian recognition.
Unlike the general self-driving that needs to be 100% accurate, "brake when on a collision course with what appears to be a pedestrian" will save lives even if it works in 50% of the cases. And if you only engage it on straight road when the driver is not actively maneuvering, it will nicely cover the "got distracted" cases and won't cause any new crashes by braking when you are changing lanes or passing.
The other issue is that due to the crumbling state of U.S. infrastructure, normal cars with ~5.5 inch ground clearance are basically impossible to drive without ruining them by bottoming out all the time. I have zero desire to have an SUV or crossover with ~8.5 inches of ground clearance, but unfortunately there are very limited options with 6.5 or 7 inches.
My daily driver has a spec of 5.9” ground clearance. In 21K miles, I don’t think I’ve ever scraped the bottom (except on snow piles, which aren’t an infrastructure issue).
Where do you live? My factory spec 4-door sedan has 5" clearance at the front and I've never had a clearance issue. It's pretty low but it's not even a sports car
Connecticut. To be fair the most common issues I have are where the bottom of driveways meets the road, and also going over manhole covers during road milling. In the latter case you can obviously also just go around them, but it's much safer if you can just drive over them rather than swerving erratically between lanes.
So basically impossible = on private driveways or when they're doing improvements? This seems like a mindset I see a lot of thinking you need more car than you really do
My wife's daily driver is a kia optima with 5.3" of ground clearance. Road quality has never been a problem and we have driven it to at least a dozen states, and to get to our house requires driving 1/3 a mile of gravel road.
I drive a Hyundai Veloster with 5.6in of ground clearance and in five years of ownership I've never bottomed it out once in either urban or rural driving. I'm not sure this is a reasonable characterization.
The idea is to disincentivize the dangerous thing without outright banning it, or imposing complicated regulations such as assessing whether a person has a legitimate need for the dangerous thing.
Also think registration fees shouldn't just be based on a year of a car. If someone has a 2020 Toyota Corolla why is registering it just as much as registering a 2020 Mercedes S63. I think generally economical cars should cost the lowest amount to register regardless of age.
Really? My old Dodge is a giant compared to modern cars, though it was of modest size in its day. Parking slot sizes have shrunk considerably over the years.
I don't believe that. I've seen it myself when a store will restripe their lot to squeeze more parking in. I never had to grease the sides of the car to park it in the 70's.
That store may well have been the exception, but I'm still curious: what process did you use to come up with the idea that the restriped slots were smaller?
Does taxing more on big cars stop pedestrian accidents? Where does that tax go? Improving crosswalks? So they say. Who oversees that actually happening? Can’t trust the government to do that efficiently and effectively.
Should we also tax pedestrians who look right at moving cars and summarily dip their toes into the crosswalk, expecting said car to slam brakes on for their stroll?
It’s a two way street, pun intended. Drivers need to watch the fuck out and slow down in high foot traffic areas, and pedestrians need to make sure it’s safe to cross. You know, like when we were 5 years old. Look both ways. Only now, do that and put your smartphone in your pocket for the crossy street journey.
"Large cars also reduce visibility which further reduces safety."
This is a flawed mindset. Anyone who has taken driver's ed knows that the proper solution is to leave more following distance if you can't see.
"There has been a car size arms race for the past 30-40 years."
Actually, car sizes have been getting smaller over that time frame. However more people are opting for larger types of vehicles like trucks or SUVs. You can't find a car today that has the same capacities and space that my old 89 Caprice had.
Edit: why downvote?
Edit 2: I guess there are a lot of bad drivers who won't leave proper following distance and don't want to admit it by commenting. It's always someone else fault when they can't see or otherwise safely operate their vehicle...
They were talking about larger vehicles blocking the visibility of people in smaller vehicles. Visibility of pedestrians by someone in a large vehicle is not really an issue (it's a small blind spot that one should be tracking objects/people as they move in/out of it, just like for the other blind spots).
One of my favorite philosophy papers: "Vehicles and Crashes: Why is this Moral Issue Overlooked?" by Douglas Husak. He argues, base on data that SUVs have a high crash incompatibility with other cars, they are immoral. SUVs impose disproportionate damage to other cars, resulting in excess deaths and injuries that otherwise would not happen.
This moral issue is indeed really fascinating. Cars are one of the few places where we regularly accept preventable deaths as faultless accidents. Across wide swaths of the US there's an implicit assumption that if a pedestrian gets hit they somehow deserved it, or that the only people that walk or bike are people too poor to buy a car and hence undeserving of compassion or justice. Our society is so saturated with these attitudes it's a bit shocking once you see it clearly in the abstract.
Yeah, it's the saddest thing. I think what sucks, is that people don't really know how much better our lives would be if we were less car dependent. There are 6 million accidents a year. That means that like at least 18 million people ar affected (gotta get that car fixed in the best case right?) each year, at a minimum (let's assume a family of one child and two parents and one of these people gets into an accident and let's assume they were crashing into just walls or something). Accidents aren't just bad for the people in the accident, but they cause financial stress and mental stress to the families affected.
If we just discouraged driving by even a small percent (and thus a small fraction of accidents) so many people's lives would be better, simply due to the magnitudes as play.
Just read any headline after a collision and weep. For instance if a driver fails to yield and causes a cyclist to drive into it, the headline will most likely read any of:
Cyclist hits car (implicitly blaming the cyclist). Car and cyclist involved in accident (an accident, nothing anyone could do, nothing to learn here). Cyclist hurt after car failed to yield (at least getting the story straight, but still the driver isn't mentioned, as if the car is acting on its own and the driver is a passive innocent person). Cyclist hit by car (no, again it's making the active part passive, it should read Car hits cyclist if so).
Yeah, 100% this. There was a local incident here where a driver intentionally drove his car into someone walking to a protest, and our big paper (owned and operated out of Orange county) wrote it up using the whole passive voice and accident headline. It was attempted murder and they still did that nonsense.
In my experience, SUV drivers are much more likely to be completely crazy.
Example: when I lived in NYC, I was walking across an intersection, with the light, an SUV going through the red light - very slowly - knocked me down (because I wasn't looking at him), and kept going!
I got up, yelled, "Hey, you hit me!" but the SUV continued forcing its way through the pedestrians, against the light. I thumped on the hood, and the man opened the door, leaving his car to block traffic, and chased me across Eighth Ave, till I luckily found some police officers, who of course refused to do anything even when I pointed out his SUV parked in the middle of the street, and all the witnesses watching.
The man was literally insane. Drool fell from his mouth as he chased me.
I have seen similar things where I wasn't the target.
SUVs are possibly safer if you collide with a smaller vehicle. But they are not safer in general. And they are especially not safer for pedestrians as the OP's URL says. Here's another earlier URL on that topic:
SUVs roll over and, when they do, their occupants brains are often smashed. Not good for your next Google interview.
SUVs are less maneuverable and can be unstable if one attempts to change course, especially at higher speed such as freeway driving. This is even more serious in rain and ridiculously obvious in ice/snow.
Sedans are safer b/c
- they are designed to be safer (sedan safety standards are more demanding than those of SUVs),
- they are more maneuverable and brake better and
- they protect you from front/rear/side impacts and from rollovers.
Sure, the sedan is destroyed, but it did it's job, which is to protect you. You can always get a new car but you can't get a new brain if yours is pancaked.
In the US there are different safety and fuel economy standards for different classes of vehicles. The traditional SUV is built on a light truck frame and is classified as a light truck, so it does not need to meet the same safety and fuel economy standards that would be required of a sedan. It gets a bit fuzzier when you start to talk about 'crossover' vehicles, which are usually SUV-style vehicles built on sedan frames. The short version is that light truck standards assume things like pickup trucks used on farms or construction sites and not soccer moms hauling three kids and groceries.
I now drive a large truck, and moved my wife to a large SUV. The area we live in is more rural, with the small car being an exception. I absolutely was thinking about my family over anyone else when I made that decision. I have always tended to buy smaller cars and was a bit skeptical about larger vehicles, but once you get used to one it's really hard to imagine going back, at least when there's a size difference in the area you commonly drive in.
When I was growing up in the 90s I lived in a rural area. I drove a late 70s-early 80s style detroit land yacht. I was an idiot and ended up in a cornfield doing 70mph. So did a classmate driving an SUV a few months later. Do you want to guess which one walked away and which one died from a rollover crash?
I don't think the gp is implying that people are actively looking to cause crashes. What they are saying is that a "better you than me" mentality (which is unfortunately quite rational) is definitely a factor in the overall buying decision.
It’s all SUVs and trucks where I live. I was really into cars growing up, then I got over it. It’s so far beyond practicality and well into excess, like most shit around here.
You might be surprised if you check actual weights. After all, the original SUVs were literally just truck frames with nicer (and therefore heavier) cabins.
I've been driving full sized vans since I got my license. In fact I took my driving test in a Dodge Tradesman. That thing is maybe a smidge smaller than my current van.
I've been watching SUV's and Trucks get bigger and bigger over the last twenty years. Back in the 90's wasn't that common to share the road with anything the same size other than heavy work trucks and other vans. Now a lot of SUV's and weekend warrior trucks are as big/bigger.
Why not set SUVs and trucks as the default then? One ould have to select the vehicle capable of accommodating the most people and situations. Many large/tall people have trouble fitting into cars. You can't pull livestock in a car either.
It's like two people are in a room. One says they're hot. The other says they're cold. The hot person can only take off so many clothes, while the cold person could put on warmer clothes.
Edit: is nobody reading this in the context of the parent comment?
> Why not set SUVs and trucks as the default then?
(1) Many people can't afford larger vehicles.
(2) It is a bad idea to make everyone spend more money on transportation.
(3) Larger vehicles have worse gas mileage and are thus worse for the environment.
(4) How do you implement the "baselineing"? Does congress pass a law that says all cars on the road must weigh more than X lbs? Seems like an odd policy.
(5) Moving more people to SUVs will increase pedestrian and bike deaths, not decrease.
(6) So everyone has a SUV. Won't some people just buy bigger SUVs to regain their previous safety status? Doesn't this just cause a race to the bottom? Why would you want to encourage that?
I guess (some) people don't recognize how much gas SUVs guzzle (your point 3). To be fair, gas mileage is a fairly opaque topic, but if anything is clear it is that going faster and having more drag is very bad for your mileage.
So going 200 km/h in your SUV (common sight on German Autobahns) is the worst thing you can do.
I'm not actually advocating this. The other person is saying the mismatch in size/weight is immoral, so SUVs should be banned. I'm asking why ban SUVs and not cars. That eliminates the mismatch and provides use to the most people.
Probably because most modern societies agree that cars serve an extremely useful function that is worth some amount of added public risk.
But if SUV purchases are mostly driven by vanity and comfort, it's much harder to morally justify them.
Also, banning cars completely simply isn't a realistic policy goal, whereas limiting or eliminating SUVs could plausibly get some political traction. Why let perfect be the enemy of good?
It's also possible to change city designs to be more safety friendly, or to limit speed (under 20mph has the same outcomes whether it's a car or SUV). These changes would be beneficial across the board and not just for a single vehicle type. These would also be more achievable than trying to eliminate SUVs (the ones on the road currently could last decades).
No, but clearly society has accepted the risks with cars, right? They could change city design be safer, or change the drivers test to be less of a joke. After all people do still die when hit with smaller vehicles.
And looking at the study, you cloud just limit speed. Pedestrian outcomes are the same for cars and SUVs under 20 mph.
That's kind of like saying that instead of denuclearization, let's just make having nuclear warheads the default and everyone else can get warheads too.
Car makers are making this the default. Ford is (or has?) eliminated cars from their American offerings. The problem is that even within the class of SUVs and trucks, those vehicles have gotten larger and faster over time.
The analogy of the hot and cold person assumes the hot person is wearing a t-shirt and sweater, when in reality when you compare it to vehicles, it's more like they are wearing that gortex jacket from Seinfeld + 3 layers of sweaters. People don't need to cater to somebody unreasonable. People don't need SUVs. They provide like no advantage compared to a wagon to most people and endanger everybody else.
"Ford is (or has?) eliminated cars from their American offerings."
What? Do you have a source?
"People don't need SUVs. They provide like no advantage compared to a wagon to most people and endanger everybody else."
Can you pull a livestock trailer with a wagon? Anytime you get in any vehicle there is the potential that you endanger other people. Should we ban EVs? A Tesla S can weigh more than an F150...
"The analogy of the hot and cold person assumes the hot person is wearing a t-shirt and sweater, when in reality when you compare it to vehicles, it's more like they are wearing that gortex jacket from Seinfeld + 3 layers of sweaters."
Then the analogy still works well because the hot person still has clothes to remove. It's when people complain about being cold in the summer and don't wear heavier clothes while the warm people are already wearing the socially acceptable minimum. It's about approaching constraints.
Not everybody needs to do those things. I have lived 28 years without owning a truck and will never need one. My father knows how to drive many sized trucks for work, but he never needed to own one. Trucks provide utility and to be clear, I singled out SUVs because they have basically no value for people buying them, except that it makes them feel safe because they aren't the smallest vehicle on the road anymore. Most are terrible off-roaders and if people need to carry more people they can buy wagons and vans.
"Not everybody needs to do those things. I have lived 28 years without owning a truck and will never need one."
But in a proposed world of no SUVs or trucks (read comment chain), there are some people who would not be able to perform their tasks. If we have to ban something, why not leave the most capable vehicle that provide coverage to the most people. I'm trying to get the original commenter to explain.
I am not going to refute those EV claims! To be clear, you are talking to a person who is in a brand new sector of the transportation industry. I have somewhat of an interest in seeing people not drive in major metropolitan areas anymore. I am coming from a biased position where I believe people should not be driving as a first choice, unless they live in an area where its not economically viable to provide large scale public transit or bike lanes, like rural & suburban areas.
You are saying, why not ban cars? But not all SUVs are created equal. They aren't all RAV4s or CRVs. If you look at the new land rover defender, its unclear how people can even see out of that monstrosity. Its enormous and has insanely bad visibility and is HEAVY. That thing would destroy other SUVs, let alone cars. A ford explorer from the early 2000s is flimsy compared to these new SUVs.
> But in a proposed world of no SUVs or trucks (read comment chain)
I think you've misinterpreted something. No one is suggesting banning trucks or lorries; only SUVs. They are not the same. Trucks, lorries, vans, buses, coaches, all provide meaningful utility. SUVs do not.
Honestly I would argue that most SUV owners just want to own the biggest car ... if it would be anything else (safety, load capacity, comfort) you could get the same or better with a not-SUV.
Trucks serve a purpose if you need to carry (really) big loads on a regular basis (eg farming equipment). Same goes for actual off-road vehicles. None of these are applicable to vehicles that are only driven in cities.
I personally like the "Hochdachkombi" format (e.g. Citreon Berlingo) ... smaller than a SUV with twice the trunk volume (1000l compared to e.g. the 550l of a X3).
I can (and I have) transported four fridge size PA speakers in that car and still have some space on top for monitor speakers. All while still fitting on tight parking places in the city and using 8l / 100km (30mpg?).
"None of these are applicable to vehicles that are only driven in cities."
Unless you're a contractor/handyman that needs to haul things like drywall, lumber, water heaters, etc. So there are some professions in the city that may require larger vehicles. Also, sometimes those farmer still have to drive into the city for things anyways, like for medical care.
I will confess that I did not read the article on morality, since it is hidden behind a nag screen. I assume most other people did not and would not, and the commenter merely provided it for those more curious.
Generally speaking, I believe it is reasonable to only be arguing against the commenter, not the articles or papers they reference.
The commenter in question only mentions SUVs, and not trucks. So even if the article about morality did lump trucks and SUVs in the same category, that's not what the commenter is bringing to the table.
In that case their argument is even weaker. Just banning SUVs based on morality will cause those people to seek similar vehicles like vans and trucks, providing no benefit.
The article talks about "personal vehicles" repeatedly, starting in the first sentence, and makes it clear that it's talking about vehicles used for personal transportation.
What is the point you are trying to make? Many people only have one vehicle. So they might be pulling a heavy trailer some of the time but using it for personal transportation the rest of the time.
> But in a proposed world of no SUVs or trucks (read comment chain),
I suggest YOU read the comment chain.
No one is suggesting that. We're suggesting that these not be used as passenger vehicles by consumers, not that businesses that actually need them give them up.
Where is the distinction? I certainly don't see businesses mentioned anywhere before your comment.
What about farmers that don't operate as an LLC? How about people that have livestock as a hobby? Or other hobbies that involve trailering, like race cars?
Then what are the SUVs being replaced with? Is it strictly cars? And what kind benefit do we see if SUVs are still allowed by some, but not others?
I always love revisiting the Canada episode of The Grand Tour where they tested 3 midsize SUVs and concluded that they’re neither sporty nor provide much utility.
"Ford is (or has?) eliminated cars from their American offerings."
What? Do you have a source?
Doubling down on the livestock angle? I thought you were trolling.
Can you pull a livestock trailer with a wagon?
I see now that domestic livestock logistics is a passion of yours. Surely you have sources to tell us how many F-150s it takes to get our bacon to the local Wal-Mart.
Please read the comment chain. If you ban SUVs and trucks, there is a segment of the population that will be negatively affected by not having the ability to perform their tasks. The question was way ban SUVs and not cars - that eliminates the energy mismatch and allows the most people the utility they need.
I'm asking that person if they've thought of these details when they made their comment.
Long winters with heavy snow fall and icy road conditions. Sure, some folks drive them year round. But the number of rwd cars on the road when snow is on the ground is nearly zero.
Also, the mustang is a 2dr coupe. Whether or not it is capable, most folk do not want to deal with car seats/strollers in a coupe. It's also not a car marketed towards families.
I just find it hard to believe there is much demographic overlap between folks that purchase a mustang vs a corolla or accord.
tl;dr - Due to targeted marketing and preconceived notions, the only people buying mustangs are those that want them. It's an entry level sports car.
"Long winters with heavy snow fall and icy road conditions. Sure, some folks drive them year round. But the number of rwd cars on the road when snow is on the ground is nearly zero."
Eh, I grew up driving an old caprice in the mountains of PA - no anti-lock, no traction control, not even posi-trac. My current truck is RWD only, although I don't live in the mountains anymore. While FWD can offer a slight advantage, I don't think it makes much of a difference as long as you have the proper tires and make smart choices.
So it is drivable.
I think it's more that the people who own the nicer trims of those cars try to save them from the salt or people who can't drive. Not to mention that RWD cars are already a minority of the vehicles on the road, except for 99% of the time the trucks you see will be in RWD.
Yeah, it's definitely more of a single person's car, or a second car for a family without small kids.
The other person is saying the mismatch in size/weight is immoral, so SUVs should be banned. I'm asking why ban SUVs and not cars. That eliminates the mismatch and provides use to the most people because there are things you just can't do with a car, and even people who cannot comfortably/safely fit in them.
Because you are willfully ignoring the pedestrian angle by saying the default should be SUV over sedans. Here's one of many sources that is very easy to google for.
If it's all about pedestrians, then we should also ban EVs (all cars, really).
You've opened yourself up to the same absurd reduction, saying if even one farmer is disadvantaged then the standard should be towards the heavy pick-up/SUV instead of the sedan. You talk about "systems" and you say you are not ignoring the pedestrian portion of the system but you have not spoken to it. I would like to hear your position on the energy mismatch between pedestrian vs heavy vehicle as compared to energy mismatch between sedan and pedestrian. What is your perception of the pedestrian, their agency, their right of way in regards to the roads, etc... in the system you have in your head?
What is there to speak to? Society has already accepted that there will be accidents and fatalities, what the right of way is, etc. So then kts a matter of maximizing utility under the existing constraints. My position is that the underlying premise that was provided for banning large vehicles doesn't pass even a cursory cost benefit analysis in how many lives would be impacted on both sides. It doesn't explore alternatives such as city design, stricter drivers tests, etc. Frankly, the energy between an SUV and a sedan doesn't matter that much when it's against a person because either one is sufficient to cause injury or death based on a number of factors. Not to mention that EV sedans can weigh as much as a pickup, so there might not be much difference anyways.
Society has already accepted that there will be accidents and fatalities
So society has accepted there will be accidents and fatalities? To quote you "Do you have a source?" I'm kidding, I know the livestock angle was never genuine :)
But to finish it out, in 2020 farmers received $46.5 billion dollars in aid[1]. If farmers transporting livestock is such a small percentage of actual use cases why not account for that in subsidies instead of saying that society has to normalize the scenario with the worst case negative externalities?
'So society has accepted there will be accidents and fatalities? To quote you "Do you have a source?" '
Look at the laws and fatalities. It's clear that society accepts some fatalities. If they didn't, we would still be driving carriages or walking everywhere. Even the article on morality in this chain acknowledges that some fatalities are considered acceptable if the value derived is worth it.
"I'm kidding, I know the livestock angle was never genuine"
It is genuine.
"If farmers transporting livestock is such a small percentage of actual use cases why not account for that in subsidies"
How would subsidies help? What about people raising livestock as a hobby?
"instead of saying that society has to normalize the scenario with the worst case negative externalities?"
How can you say it's the worst case to have larger vehicles like SUVs? One could view having only cars as having more negative externalities if it means preventing many people from doing the things they love? Especially if the pedestrian aspect can still be solved by other means, like reducing speed and safer city designs.
Even with a rear-facing car seat behind you? I find it extremely uncomfortable, and even unsafe, if your knees are touching the dash and/or your head is touching the roof.
"Two cars colliding are safer than two SUVs colliding, it's simple physics. More energy = more damage, generally speaking."
There's also more energy absorbing material from the amount of energy the crumple zone can absorb. And the interior space make it less likely that it will crush you if the crumpling does extend into the cabin.
"There are 20 percent fewer deaths when two SUVs collide than when two cars collide."
This is an older article with some outdated info (like A pillars are larger and impact zones on cars have gotten higher), but this seems to refute your claim.
Because they are claiming that the energy mismatch is immoral. Still allowing larger vehicles on the road does not address that mismatch and the "moral" aspect.
This has been a trend, but the largest jump was every new body since 2009.
In order to meet the practically impossible CAFE and emissions standards pushed for completely for PR by the Obama Admin, a silent change was made to how vehicles are judged and tallied in the CAFE specifically, but also CARB (CA only) and NHTSA (not emissions, but related to size increases).
Footprint became a consideration to emissions.
Larger footprint vehicles are judged differently than smaller footprint. You might be thinking, that makes no sense, and you would be right. Of course this incentivized making larger vehicles. I don’t know the reasoning behind it other than Admin wanted a win for PR, Congress didn’t know any better, automakers got an out and got room to add garbage no one asked for. I know this is the reason vehicles got larger, suddenly in every single body made since 2009.
Obama came in and said we’re going to forgive you a little on footprint, automakers delivered footprint.
EDIT: for the people that can’t stand to hear something bad about politician they voted for… Despite every vehicle getting larger, the CAFE averages have still gone up. StartStop, DEF, multiple displacement, private bussed “smart” O2 sensors, heated differentials (sounds silly, I know), selectable lock Tcase, front axle disconnect, adjustable ride height, aluminum bodies, selectable air intakes, higher pressure injectors, more aerodynamic bodies, etc etc. While we haven’t improved upon the best stoichiometric ratio of air and petrol, we have improved all aspect of ICE vehicles… they’re just larger.
> In vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention tests, the Ram 1500 avoided collisions at both 12 mph and 25 mph. In most of the vehicle-to-pedestrian tests, it avoided hitting the pedestrian dummy or slowed substantially to mitigate the force of impact. However, the system failed to slow the vehicle at all in the 37-mph trial designed to simulate an adult pedestrian walking in the travel lane in the same direction as the vehicle.
So the standard they met fails to even slow down the car when seeing an adult pedestrian at a speed that is a fraction of the driving speed in nearly every American city.
A handful of American cities have 25mph limits within the city but most drivers are driving at east 5-10 mph above that, which is kind of written into American DOT standards (which require speed limits to be set at 85% of the average driving speed on a road).
"So the standard they met fails to even slow down the car when seeing an adult pedestrian at a speed that is a fraction of the driving speed in nearly every American city.
A handful of American cities have 25mph limits within the city but most drivers are driving at east 5-10 mph above that,"
So a fraction... but an improper fraction? 37/35 mph
Did I miss the part where they show that pedestrian deaths have actually increased? They show that the proportion of SUVs hitting pedestrians have increased which makes sense because there are more SUVs, but I didn’t see that the actual deaths have increased. Maybe I missed it!
"As opposed to Europe and Japan, fatalities in the United States have remained steady over the last 14 years"
Considering the makeup of the American vehicle fleet as opposed to the Japanese and European fleet, I'd firmly place the blame on physically larger vehicles. I think this is backed up by the stats included in the same article (on page 26):
* SUVs and trucks make up ~30% of vehicles on the road (at the time of the report), but account for 40% of pedestrian fatalities
* Trucks and SUVs were twice as likely to kill a child (aged 5-19 in the study), when compared to sedans
* Pedestrians are 2-3 times as likely to suffer a fatality when hit by a truck or SUV, when compared to a sedan
Some will point to stats one and three as conflicting. I would disagree - out of 100% of pedestrian fatalities, 40% are from trucks and SUVs. Meanwhile, out of 100% of pedestrian incidents (including both fatalities and injuries), trucks and SUVs are 2-3 times as likely to end with a dead pedestrian.
I wouldn’t be surprised if pedestrian use of phones (and to a lesser extent, medication/intoxicants) was a contributing factor in a significantly higher fraction of mishaps than in 2010.
Interestingly, the article you linked doesn't mention SUVs or refer to vehicle size at all. It attributes the increase to an emphasis on speed over safety:
>state and local transportation agencies place a higher value on speed (and avoiding delay) than they do on safety...When faced with decisions that would elevate and prioritize safety for people walking but increase delay for vehicles, the decision-makers’ true priorities are laid bare.
The original linked article, however, does point to another article on a govt site that gets into vehicle size. [0]
But, in total the conclusions vacillate between the issue being lack of visibility (implying more accidents) and increased lethality owed to mass and, possibly the higher profile of the vehicle. Of course, you could conclude it's both more accidents and increased lethality, but the data doesn't seem to bear that out. For instance, the report cites a meta study that found a 2x-3x increase in fatalities when trucks or SUVs are involved, but the report also states the fatality rate for those vehicles is 40%. The original article further notes sales of trucks and SUVs have outpaced smaller vehicles since at least '07 and other assessments show these larger vehicles now make up 50% of vehicles on the road.
So, the data seems to show disproportionately fewer fatalities for these larger vehicles.
> For instance, the report cites a meta study that found a 2x-3x increase in fatalities when trucks or SUVs are involved, but the report also states the fatality rate for those vehicles is 40%.
I don't understand. How is that data contradicting the hypothesis?
Doesn't necessarily contradict the hypothesis on its own. My overall point is that the article cites different data, some of which is tangential to its hypothesis (while purporting to support it). Other data outright contradicts the hypothesis. Overall, the article was sloppy--just kind of throwing stuff against the wall, IMO.
>Why is there a "but" there?
The gov't report notes that trucks/SUVs made up 33% of the total vehicle fleet (sorry, I didn't quote that important bit in my previous comment, but it's in the report), while they make up 40% of all fatalities.
That doesn't translate to a 2x-3x higher rate for trucks/SUVs.
Probably some fraction of "trucks/SUVs" are professional drivers who usually have a much lower crash rate than private drivers. But the SUV looks twice as deadly in the direct comparison of collisions, while there isn't much reason to expect the type of car has a causal effect on the chance of a collision, ceteris paribus. So we expect a truck/SUV would be twice as deadly in the same hands as a car.
Professional drivers tend to have a high fender bender rate just from sheer exposure to traffic and a very low "texted their way into a stopped traffic at 60mph" rate because if you behave like that you will have close calls first and get fired over them.
>Probably some fraction of "trucks/SUVs" are professional drivers who usually have a much lower crash rate than private drivers.
I read the crash rate as already factored-in. Here's the fuller quote from the report linked [0] by the article that I'm referencing:
The majority of fatal pedestrian crashes involve light vehicles. About one-third of pedestrians who are injured are struck by an SUV or pickup truck, which corresponds closely to the make-up of SUVs and pickups in the U.S. vehicle fleet. However, SUVs and pickups account for closer to 40 percent of pedestrian fatalities, which suggests that injuries may be more severe when sustained in collisions with these vehicles. Results from a meta-analysis of 12 independent injury data studies showed that pedestrians are 2-3 times more likely to suffer a fatality when struck by an SUV or pickup truck than when struck by a passenger car.
So, they're saying the accident-rate is proportional—i.e. maps to the percentage of SUVs and pickups on the road. It's only the fatality rate that is increased. And, sure, 40% would be disproportionately high vs 33%, but it doesn't represent a rate that's 2x-3x higher.
>there isn't much reason to expect the type of car has a causal effect on the chance of a collision
Well, the original article actually suggests that reduced visibility in SUVs/trucks may contribute to higher crash rates. That's exactly the kind of thing I found sloppy. Just a statement with no data to back it up (in fact, the gov't report they linked contradicts it, as noted above).
The article itself opens with this beauty:
You don’t need to read a research paper to know that more people are driving trucks and SUVs (sport utility vehicles) compared to 20 years ago, that today’s trucks and SUVs are significantly bigger than they were 10-20 years ago, or that they’re more dangerous for people walking, biking, or getting around with an assistive device. It's intuitive.
It's actually not intuitive that they're more dangerous for pedestrians. For instance, they could come equipped with more sensors and other tech that accounts for their size and actually makes them safer than other vehicles. Or, drivers of larger vehicles could be more cautious. Or, their increased size may make them more visible, hence, pedestrians are less likely to step out in front of them.
And, what's the point of noting that "it's intuitive" anyway? Not the best way to start an article that should be (and purports to be) data-driven. In general, the article suggests a series of loosely assembled "intuition" and facts, then draws these hard conclusions that I'm not sure we're certain about yet. I'm not disputing their claims. Just saying it could be much tighter and reads a bit like an agenda loosely packaged in data and appeals to "intuition".
I think the real answer is that we need more data and are still figuring this out, especially if we're looking for actionable solutions.
Oh I see, that makes more sense. I'll look closer at the data, still not sure I'm 100% following.
Just to share what confused me, I read "fatality rate" as the rate at which a struct pedestrial is killed, so I couldn't wrap my head around why that mattered to the point at hand.
I can’t find data going up until 2020, but there are easily searchable news articles reporting on 2020 being a record year for deaths. Here’s some data, but it only goes to 2018: https://www.ghsa.org/resources/Pedestrians19
The thing about trucks is that a taller fatter truck is not a better truck for truck activities than one with a reachable long bed. The gigantic noses do nothing to make the truck more capable. Ground clearance is helpful but even the S-10 pickup had 8.5” of ground clearance. Trucks today have 10-11, excessive, but that ground clearance doesn’t grow as much as the height of the trucks. It all started with the 90s Dodge RAMs, which today look very reasonable, and ever since then trucks have been in a fat nose arms race that nobody seemed to ask for.
I fully understand the design intentions to grow cars and crossovers. You need to expand the exterior if you want to keep constant interior space despite a bunch of legally mandated engineering goals that cost interior space.
I don't see what engineering goals are causing fullsize trucks to get so tall. They could have kept interior space constant with a very slight increase in width. NVH could be driving it somewhat but not that much.
My wife has a truck and I read a few truck forums and reddit and people seem to love the giant "aggressive" looking trucks. Even though for most applications its detrimental.
Ground clearance is almost meaningless for off road driving once you've got a good baseline. Approach, departure and break over angles are what determines capability. That and the ability to fit big tires that can be aired down a lot.
Is it just the size of vehicles or the design of the streets and roads also to blame?
The "stroad" which we seem to love here in Canada and I'd assume the USA is dangerous by design.
Roads should be simple, medium speed, no traffic circles, few traffic lights, controlled access, no driveways exiting onto it, no bike lanes, no sidewalks, no crosswalks, no bus stops etc.
Streets should be simple two lane, slow speed, more pedestrian friendly.
But often the two are often mixed together meaning both pedestrians and traffic efficiency suffer.
I haven't read all the linked materials, but the reference provided[1] with the sentence "To put it simply, pickup trucks and SUVs are two to three times more likely than smaller personal vehicles to kill people walking in the event of a crash." said the following:
"The majority of fatal pedestrian crashes involve light vehicles.[210] About one-third of pedestrians who are injured are struck by an SUV or pickup truck (see Appendix VII, Table VII-1), which corresponds closely to the make-up of SUVs and pickups in the U.S. vehicle fleet. However, SUVs and pickups account for closer to 40 percent of pedestrian fatalities, which suggests that injuries may be more severe when sustained in collisions with these vehicles. "
So at least for this one relieable source, SUVs or pickups are not hitting more people because of size/hight as argued by the blog. They tend to result in more damage in the accidents, instead.
The blog is not, by my reading, arguing that SUVs are hitting more people. It lists quite specific reasons that the impacts are worse when hit by an SUV etc than by a smaller car.
It is strongly implied in figure1, figure 3, and explictly expressed ("You don’t need a PhD to see why trucks and SUVs are more likely to kill people walking: They’re taller, have worse visibility, and are more likely to produce head/neck injuries than leg injuries."). The cited reference did not directly support the visibility argumentt or the specific injury types (although I do not doubt that they could be true).
I can't wait for things like Hummer EV which might as well be a jumbo jet airplane compared to pedestrians, cyclists, hell, even other vehicle traffic.
Pounds That Kill: The External Costs of Vehicle Weight
Heavier vehicles are safer for their own occupants but more hazardous for other vehicles. Simple theory thus suggests that an unregulated vehicle fleet is inefficiently heavy. Using three separate identification strategies we show that, controlling for own-vehicle weight, being hit by a vehicle that is 1000 pounds heavier generates a 40–50% increase in fatality risk. These results imply a total accident-related externality that exceeds the estimated social cost of US carbon emissions and is equivalent to a gas tax of $0.97 per gallon ($136 billion annually). We consider two policies for internalizing this external cost, a weight-varying mileage tax and a gas tax, and find that they are similar for most vehicles. The findings suggest that European gas taxes may be much closer to optimal levels than the US gas tax.
EVs are probably going to make this problem worse as they are typically heavier than the ICE equivalent. For example the Porsche Panamera weighs 2000kg and the Porsche Taycan weighs 2800kg. The VW Tiguan weighs 1500kg, where as the VW ID.4 weighs 1800kg.
I suppose it's more proof I'm a bad person for laughing so hard that this just showed up directly below the 'On the link between great thinking and obsessive walking' article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28268136
FTA: “federal policymakers have so far failed to make any significant changes to the New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) to include testing, ratings, or safety standards for people outside a vehicle, whether on foot, bike, or using assistive devices.
Read that again: we do not test for, or even consider, the impact of a new car’s design on potential collisions with human beings not in a vehicle—an action that results in a death more than 6,200 times per year and increasing almost every year.”
Yes and no, but I think mostly yes. Asian and European regulations on pedestrian safety for autos have an effect on design worldwide as most makers want to sell their cars into most markets. Many of the cars you buy in the US meet those pedestrian safety regulations, even though there’s no US regulation requiring it.
Only 6200 per year? Reducing this by maybe a few hundred does not seem like a productive thing to spend political energy on. I question if it would be utilitarian even ignoring the political cost. That’s really far down the cause of death list.
You're getting downvoted but that's a valid point. If you spend any time around older vehicles you notice how "chunky" modern cars are, how little passenger volume they have compared to their outer dimensions. I'm not saying those measures aren't worth it, but they are making cars bigger.
It depends on the timeframe. 30-40 years ago there were cars like the Caprice. You can't even get a car with that size and capacity today (look at how small the modern caprice is). I would say the general trend is cars are getting smaller and people are opting for larger types of vehicles like SUVs.
I think you are describing a different phenomenon: Large sedans getting replaced by other vehicle types leaving smaller sedans. The case of the caprice seems to be a totally different vehicle if I am understanding the years you have in mind correctly. Certainly the newer models of caprice are targeting a very different audience than the old ones did.
"I think you are describing a different phenomenon: Large sedans getting replaced by other vehicle types leaving smaller sedans."
Basically, but it's also that the meaning of the terms have changed. The Caprice is and was a full size car. Today's full size car has about the same capacities and room as an older midsize car.
I’m no apologist for new big cars, but…I was dropping my kids off at school and a 1st grader was riding her bike through the crosswalk and another driver didn’t see her. He bumped her at less-than walking speed so no one was seriously injured. I was amazed at how she bounced up and away from the car. If I would have hit her with my (old) truck, even at that super low speed, I’m sure she would have gotten caught on the bumper and pulled under the wheels. The new pedestrian safety designs are cool even though they do make all cars look the same and bulbous now.
I don't think that's responsive. Regulations are forcing up the size of the smallest vehicles. The median vehicle in the US is a SUV with almost twice the curb weight of those "larger" compacts.
The change in median vehicle weight is absolutely not being caused by safety regulations.
Regulations are forcing up the size of everything short of a fullsize truck or van. Cars in various segments (compact, midsize, crossover, midsize crossover, etc, etc) have set ranged of interior dimensions. For example, a Civic will always be about the same width as a CRV (same platform) and an Accord will always be wider than both. But all these cars have grown a lot compared to their 90s counterparts. With regulations requiring thick doors, pillars, etc. the exteriors of all these vehicles have grown and interior space has stayed closer to constant.
Obviously the pressure is less the bigger the vehicle is so this doesn't explain modern trucks but the pressure is definitely felt everywhere, not just as the small end.
I have a friend who was hit by a car doing around 25 mph. Those plastic bumpers do prevent damage. If he got hit with an older car with steel bumpers, it would be a different outcome.
Doesn't seem like that is necessarily true. The 4th-generation Mazda Miata is lighter than the 1st-generation, despite conforming to all relevant modern safety standards, and being a generally all-around better vehicle.
The Miata is an outlier. Mazda went to great lengths to keep the car's weight down since being light weight is a big part of the car's appeal. The extra development cost and tradeoffs wouldn't make sense for the typical sedan, let alone larger vehicles.
In general, protecting pedestrians is not the main goal of car design. They are built to protect the passengers of the car. As long as there are very heavy, dangerous (in case of an accident) vehicles on the road (samis/trucks, buses), I don't see a strong case for making passengers more vulnerable to benefit pedestrians, especially considering the market forces involved. Pedestrians are better protected with assisting technology without compromising the safety of the passengers.
Also, the article is a bit sloppy with its claims. For example, it cites the SUV increase in market share and later the increased involvement of SUVs in accidents with pedestrians, as if the 2 things were not related. It's as partisan as expected.
The bigger the vehicle, the less fatalities overall for passengers/drivers of that vehicle in car accidents in the US. This has lots of compounded factors, but the increase in size is easily a survival factor against other large vehicles. I'll take the trade for the pedestrian death increase, which is a fraction of total car-related fatalities. I also feel that the number of pedestrians has increased due to various factors, which has led to a predictable increase in accidents and fatalities.
This study feels like a lot of hand waving on a slow news cycle, when those numbers aren't alarming in the slightest.
The article mentions that car safety standards do not take pedestrian safety into account. Surely these standards should be based on a complete picture, even if the revised standards do not end up incentivizing smaller cars.
Play with the dropdowns. Vehicle safety is pretty serious business with millions of injuries per year. I'm not citing everything that's casually available.
And yet in the US cars are only getting bigger and bigger. I was looking for a small EV for commuting recently and found that both Smart ForTwo and Fiat 500e withdrew from the US market in the past couple of years.
There are a lot more new SUVs than sedans, and the ratio has definitely gotten bigger over the past 5-6 years.
As long as parking is free and plentiful and roads are ridiculously wide people have very little incentive to buy a smaller car. Especially if they have to share the road with giant trucks.
Not to poop all over this article but doesn't the advance in automotive industry also bring things like automatic brakes etc to protect against collisions, lane swerve etc. :/
and I also enjoy a lot of cycling and have been hit by plenty idiots drived opening doors or making turns and not looking.
The latest flavour of “fuck you” on the roads in Australia are the grotesque SUV Coupes from Mercedes and BMW.
They’re like huge versions of the normal sized cars. It’s as if both companies execs set down and brainstormed how could rich people display wealth and selfishness more pornographically.
The answer: enormous German tanks that occupy twice the road and go just as fast.
I’ll never be rich because in my reality only very few people would be so childish to buy something like it. They’re everywhere in Sydney.
We can't get people to give a damn about 700K deaths in a year.
What is this fantasy that people are going to drive more carefully and not however they want, or massive lifted trucks or manufacturers are going to take less profit by not making bigger trucks?
Yes, of course lawmakers could fix this. Never, ever going to happen. Hint: neither is preventing earth from boiling over in several decades because that also would require behavior change and less profit
I'm genuinely curious here - does anyone agree with me that being on foot seems to make it a hell of a lot easier to avoid cars than being out driving with them? I've had three drunk drivers hit me while I've been in a car, and yet have never been run over while just out walking around. When I'm on foot I just look around for the damn things and stay the hell away from them, in my car it's no such luck.
The complete lack of hard data and game-able statistics made me curious, so I went to the cited journal article.
> It analyzes all 231,675 pedestrian fatalities recorded between 1977 and 2016 in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) database. Over 40 years, most pedestrian fatalities occurred in darkness (65%) and involved male pedestrians (70%) and male drivers (67%). They were commonly in roadway lanes (90%), away from intersections (80%), and involved vehicles traveling straight (83%). Most occurred on roadways with speed limits of 35 mph (56 km/h) or higher (70%) and four or more lanes (50%). Trends were compared across eight 5-year periods. Between the earliest and latest periods, there were significant decreases in the proportion of pedestrian fatalities among children younger than 15 (from 18% to 5%) and involving drivers who were drinking (from 15% to 8%). There were significant increases in pedestrian fatalities during darkness (from 63% to 73%), involving large vehicles (e.g., pickup trucks, vans, and SUVs) (from 22% to 44%), on roadways with speed limits 35 mph or higher (from 60% to 76%), and on roadways with four or more lanes (from 41% to 58%). [0]
That comes out to around 5,792 pedestrian deaths per year. And note that the "think of the children" motif of this post is totally undermined by the cited data: whatever increase in fatalities can be blamed on SUVs and pickups, kids are apparently much less likely to get hit as pedestrians today, for whatever reason.
Just for sake of comparison, in 2016, the total number of highway fatalities tracked by the NHTSA was 37,461, (of which 5,987 were pedestrians, quite close to the 40-year mean).[1] Thus, the ratio of non-pedestrian highway fatalities to pedestrian fatalities is roughly 5.25:1.
"Smart Growth" endorses this recommendation:
> "Cars can be designed to be safer if they strike pedestrians by using softer materials on lower bumpers and hoods and incorporating more space between the hoods and engine components, and automakers that opt not to do this will suffer lower safety ratings.
Yet, hard materials that crunch and break off are used in bumpers because of the conservation of momentum, and the fact that people in other cars are clearly at a much greater risk than the average pedestrian. Other recommendations like making the front ends longer run into problems with fuel economy standards.
The auto industry is not immune from criticism, but automotive engineers are stuck between a rock and a hard place. It seems utterly insane to me that they should be expected to optimize for this case when auto-auto collisions are much more common and deadly, and when the pedestrians personal choices are clearly a factor.
Is that true if everyone else just starts driving bigger cars? Seems like we'll just end up in a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario where everyone loses, but especially the people outside of the giant cars.
It still makes sense when you consider the increased internal space. You can see this in single vehicle crash tests that do not rely on a second vehicle's size.
I know it's not science, there's no data or anything. But, i've almost been hit as a pedestrian just under 10 times. Every single time it was by either a Mercedes or BMW sedan. My sister was hit by a BMW sedan driver, her back's been fucked ever since. Almost everyone I know that's been involved in an accident as a pedestrian has been hit by either a Mercedes or BMW sedan.
ETA: Seeing as I'm getting downvoted, might as well keep going they've also always inevitably hit and run, or been incredibly rude and scream at you as they almost kill you with their half ton of plastic and metal when they're not paying attention to the road.
That's an extraordinary amount of times to be struck by vehicles. Are there any unusual factors at play? (You live by a highway, have difficulty walking, live in area with poor traffic enforcement, are visually impaired, etc.?)
Is it? He's describing "almost being hit." That's pretty squishy. I think most people who do a lot of walking or biking could come up with 10 "close calls" for some definition of that term.
Yeah, it's a very fuzzy definitions. By HN/Reddit well to do urbanite standards I've probably "almost" been hit dozens of times. By 1970s construction site standards I've probably never had a truly close call.
Nearly 100% of my close calls have been the result of miscommunicated intentions between me and drivers and none of them have been very close. I generally prefer drivers treat me as invisible and do their thing and I time my moves to not interfere with any of that so inattentive drivers don't increase the threat much for me.
the OP said almost been hit - I've almost been hit by vehicles while walking more times than that, usually because of a vehicle driver breaking the law. that happens a lot.
as far as almost being hit while driving, drive a small car and you'll find out how many large vehicle drivers just don't see you.
I was literally having this conversation yesterday with my girlfriend as we were driving country roads in my Datsun, which is significantly lower than the front grill of some of these jacked up, military style pickups. She made the classic small dick comment, but I was more hung up on the way our society has changed to make people want to style themselves in these militaristic, confrontational ways on a civilian road. You could argue that guys who drive turbo sports cars or restored classics or anything unique are compensating for something... but whatever they're compensating for isn't some sense that they aren't taking up enough space. I was going through a tunnel a few weeks ago when a modified F150 decided to roll coal on everyone behind them in the tunnel. The thing that's broken about our society is the fact that people who modify trucks to roll coal can afford to do that. They should really be out growing potatoes if we didn't have so much cheap credit.
I think the fact that "automotive safety" begins at the headlights and ends at the tail lights is extremely relevant (and frightening).
The safety of cars for literally everyone in the world EXCEPT for the 1-5 people inside that car is not considered.
It was only a few years ago (2016, in Paris) that Christoph von Hugo, a safety engineer from Mercedes, was asked how a self-driving car would handle a "trolley problem" type situation, where the car could either hit a group of pedestrians, or swerve in a way that could injure or kill the driver, and he said, "Save the one in the car."
Fatalities per mile driven have been trending down over time, drifting over the years towards 1 fatality per 100 million miles driven. It will keep improve automatically based on the standardization of various safety tech like blind spot monitoring, collision detection, collision avoidance, automated braking, sensors for cross traffic when reversing, and so on. Many of these features are increasingly becoming a standard feature rather than an option.
Like most urbanist blogs this one also ignores that these vehicles, large and moving at high speed, deliver massive utility to all of society. For the low fatality rates we experience overall, I don’t see a problem. It’s worth the tradeoff to me and most others. We don’t fear everyday life due to rare negative circumstances, and we shouldn’t unless everyone is going to be consistent about it and just permanently remain indoors in search of perfect safety.
Our transportation system is hardly the result of utility maximization. Cars are remarkably inefficient from a large variety of viewpoints. Parking spaces eat our urban real estate, traffic eats our time, emissions pollute our air and all of this leads to the second largest expenditure in the median household budget.
Sure, this article is overstating the danger of traffic accidents, but you can’t say cars are a great choice because of the utility it provides society.
I’m saying that private motor vehicles are a huge net positive despite all of that. This is hard to fully discuss in the context of a comment, and we may not see eye to eye on this, but I hope I am able to explain my perspective well:
For many urban areas, real estate is desirable in part because of its accessibility, including by cars. Without that, many who live outside the downtown core wouldn’t be there, lowering the value of that real estate. Sure pollution is undesirable but we can address that, and it’s hard to ignore the fact that being able to get places quickly via cars has improved the richness of our lives and added tremendously to the economy over the last several decades. Traffic eats our time but that’s not true everywhere, and traffic also reflects demand. Traffic is evidence that a lot of people value being able to get to the activities they want, whether that’s work or leisure. And traffic can be alleviated by just building more roads and highways to meet demand - induced demand is a myth that relies on the illogical notion that there is literally infinite demand, which is not true. Are cars expensive? Sure but so are a lot of desirable things in life. The fact that we still purchase them reflects their value to us.
There’s no other transportation option that gives me fast, weather proof, point to point transportation, on my own schedule, for me and any cargo or passengers I have. Public transit will never meet the travel times and flexibility of driving in locations with adequate road infrastructure. And there are no alternatives if I want a life where my day might span a variety of people and activities, which usually mean traveling across a wide area. Having lived in very dense metropolises with only public transit, I can confidently say there’s just no comparison - without a car you’re forced to live on a limited set of routes and on timetables with wait times. Your freedom to experience life is reduced because you just can’t get as much done on any given day, and for me it was hard to even see that until I moved out of an urban jungle. A high density transit only life may be great for young urbanites whose range of activities and circle of people matches that situation, but it isn’t what everyone desires. I’m fine with some cities like NYC optimizing for subways and buses but not every place has to be that way, because people are different and live differently. In my view, cars enable that variation in who we are, and unlocks lifestyles that wouldn’t be possible otherwise.
Very myopic. In many areas, there simply isn't room for any more roads. Like most urban areas. Try again.
You seem to have failed at living in transit-oriented places. I'll take walking to the grocery over sitting in highway traffic for 30 mins any day. Your entire life seems very oriented.
The average American spends like 2 hours a day commuting. You cannot honestly think that is a good use of time or life. Sounds depressing if you ask me.
The statistics you cited show more "urban" than "rural", yes, but nowhere do they explain the distinction. Both words are poor descriptors of areas with unlimited access, 45mph roads linking gas stations and big box stores. In all likelihood, they just slap one word or other on to each death based on the municipality it was in, which is worthless for most places in the US.
Sure, but ramoz's argument seems to be that rural is safer than urban and that thus we should encourage more rural living instead of urban living.
If we increase rural living, that will increase rates of car ownership and miles driven per day per owner.
In trying to decide whether to promote rural or urban living, we should not adjust for dependent variables, we should only adjust for independent variables. I see 2 independent variables: land type (urban vs rural) and population size. Miles driven per day per owner and rates of car ownership are largely dependent on urban vs rural.
That's not my argument. I grew up on rural roads, where there are obviously no side walks or pedestrian crossways. Heard of some (vehicle-vehicle) terrible accident every other month, and at one point(s) knew a person(s) who had passed. Including my own close calls, as a dumb teen in any car, and especially on a motorcycle. I do agree that Campers/RVs are a legitimate threat... these vehicles have terrible turn radius and blind spots, and are driven by average joes or joe-granpa. They find their way onto rural roads all the time. 3 close calls with these vehicles, 2/3 the driver never realized.
Other than RVs, the greatest offender to motorcyclists were your average driver. It takes zero effort to not be aware of your surroundings vs music, phone, a race to not be late, etc. Riding in the city was always sketch, sometimes adrenaline-rush like experience. That's where the cars really seem like hotwheels. Its a lot easier to whip a sudan around then a large truck, but there are buses and those things seemed like they were floating on the city roads.
I know of one pedestrian who was killed on rural roads. It was a drunk driver. The guy was also a known drunk, but he would bicycle 10 miles every day as part of some grocery shopping routine. I saw him for years going back and forth on my way to school.
I have, and still do, drive trucks around. You're naturally forced into being on edge, and careful when driving. You do get used it, where your guard may go down or where you might want to crank a V8 out. Driving a truck in the city brings me back to the motorcycle days, back on edge with what seems like chaos all around. The last truck I drove in the city, a 2020 RAM, had sensors going off every 5seconds (road lines, bumper to bumper).
Yes, it would depend on, based on ramoz’ links and the link we are discussing, whether the urban victims would become safer as drivers or not. Non-driving risks of urban and rural life and potential lifestyle changes would also need to be factored in.
They list pronouns for everyone on their staff page. I think it's safe to say that whatever their motives are taking donations from conservatives and the transportation needs of middle America are not high on their priorities list.
