The CAFE regulations have been a disaster for the safety and affordability of vehicles and US regulators need to figure out a way to legislate fuel effeciency in such a way that doesnt lead to the difference between a 1990's F-150 and a 2020's F-150. It would also do the US a world of good to get rid of the chicken truck import tax.
It doesn't help that vehicular manslaughter is basically not punished at all in the US. You can run over a pedestrian or cyclist due to inattention or dangerous driving and get away with a no-jail sentence of community service of 60 days or so.
The incentives are all aligned to maximize vehicle use and minimize any inconvenience to incompetent vehicle owners, regardless of the death toll.
Studies show that the length of sentence has little impact on criminal behaviour. The likelihood of getting caught has much more impact.
If everybody was guaranteed to get 60 days of community service every time they did something that could have killed a pedestrian then the behaviour would drop right off.
> Studies show that the length of sentence has little impact on criminal behaviour.
Is the purpose of punishment only to deter criminal behavior? How about expressing social condemnation for the committed criminal act, strengthening citizens' trust in the legal order based on the rule of law, increasing awareness of the danger of committing criminal acts and of the fairness of punishment, and enabling the perpetrator to rejoin the society.
I generally agree, but don't all the latter items simply in the end have the desired result of deterring future criminal behavior?
If distracted driving was caught 95% of the time, and the sentence was something like 40 hours of community service (and escalated for repeat offenders in some manner), I don't think society has nearly as difficult of a moral problem on it's hands when a 19 year old kills a cyclist due to checking a text on their phone.
Studies repeatedly show "random" punishments (even if harsh) are simply not very effective vs. consistent enforcement. When you drop the hammer on someone who more or less got "unlucky" that day by engaging in what amounts to otherwise normalized behavior due to lack of enforcement - it gets kind of hard to see how that can be remotely effective at accomplishing much for society beyond vengeance. While that is important, it certainly isn't everything.
Disincentivisation of recidivism, disincentivisation of others, isolation of dangerous individuals from society, sanitized vengeance on behalf of the victim would be the ones that someone with a different political persuasion would use. I’ve added a couple of yours to my list. Yours was a thought provoking post.
60 days of community service means that most people won't think much about driving attentively. To put it very cynically, if I didn't care for people around me, 60 days of community service sounds like an OK forced retreat. However, we shouldn't rely on people's conscience to deter manslaughter, and instead have a dual-pronged approach - appeal to both people's conscience and fear of having to spend time in prison.
> If everybody was guaranteed to get 60 days of community service every time they did something that could have killed a pedestrian then the behaviour would drop right off.
This would be fantastic
> Studies show that the length of sentence has little impact on criminal behaviour.
Does that study apply to this situation? Vehicular manslaughter is not premeditated. There are cases of drunk speeding drivers getting 10 days for killing someone: https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170126/old-town/ryne-san-h... Drivers would be more careful if they knew of cases where a driver got 15 years in prison for their negligence.
Vehicular manslaughter is not premeditated. Drunk driving and careless driving are intentional acts though, and are the acts that need to be enforced better.
But I'd imagine most people don't consider the survivability of pedestrians in a collision when they buy a car, since people generally overestimate their driving ability and underestimate their likelihood of ending up in an accident.
So harsher penalties might not improve car designs much.
I think some people do consider it (although possibly from the wrong angle and not very deeply) otherwise you wouldn't see stuff like massively lifted trucks, who's purpose is to look "aggressive" and "scary" to make the person inside feel better about themself.
I think the noise and the image are designed to impress other drivers safely cocooned within their own vehicles. You don't even need to modify the stock vehicles to get this effect. When I have no protective shell around me, even standard passenger cars seem to be aggressive and hostile.
Can confirm I got just a 2" body lift on my truck and it feels... Empowering. I want to go higher now so I'll be buying a 2" lifted suspension kit, nothing crazy like the 4" my friend is going for (his truck looks amazing with it). Unfortunately it won't fit in my shed then so I need to build a carport before I do that.
If harsher penalties were adopted only in the case of killing or injuring someone, perhaps not, but if we made fines for all moving violations proportional to vehicle weight, people might suddenly be more thoughtful.
It is arguably weird that no-one has successfully taken this approach; _in general_, if you make a thing, and then knowingly make a less safe version of a thing, and it kills someone due to your changes, then, well, you'll want a good lawyer. But cars do seem to be treated as something of a special case; all the responsibility is on the operator, even as the product is made knowingly more dangerous to bystanders.
Doesn't matter how they estimate their chances. What matters is that if the penalty is significantly higher - then insurance will go up and there will be incentive to buy cars safer for pedestrians.
Insurance won't get you out of jail or pay your fine for you. But your point is valid for civil damages, like getting sued by the family of the pedestrian you just killed with your truck.
I wonder how much of an effect those hypothetical lawsuits have on downstream insurance premiums — anecdotally, it hasn't stopped the F-150 being the most popular car in North America.
A felony vehicular manslaughter conviction is punishable by 2, 4 or 6 years in state prison.
Colorado:
Under Colorado law, vehicular manslaughter in the second degree is considered a Class 4 felony, as outlined in Colorado Revised Statutes Section 18-3-106. The potential penalties for this offense include imprisonment for a term ranging from 2 to 6 years and a fine between $2,000 and $500,000
A driver, allegedly watching youtube, runs over and kills 2 children of 12 and 14 at a crosswalk. But they were only charged with the lesser vehicular manslaughter, not felony vehicular manslaughter.
Those laws exist, but if it is a legitimate accident, and the person doesn't have a criminal history otherwise it is very likely that they walk away without any jail time.
Define "accident". There are very few circumstances where correct attentive driving technique ends up as an "accident". Most so called accidents are not "accidental". It had a predictable causation chain caused by the driver's behavior. Personally, I hate that word, much prefer "incident".
Driving too close is not an accident. Driving too fast for the conditions is not an accident. Weaving around in traffic to gain a spot. Not looking at who is in the crosswalk before driving through it. Not yielding at a merge. Racing the lights to get there before it is red/or just after. Not having your brakes, tires, lights, suspension, etc in correct working condition. Driving too tired, or under the influence. Sure, most of the time nothing happens, so people get used to thinking these are how driving is done (and it is in the US). But just because one normally gets away with it does not mean these are not dangerous behaviors, and they're absolutely under the drivers control.
Not accident, incident.
Read up on "normalization of deviance" (wiki page is pretty light but it is a start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance). Aviation has long recognized this and training emphasizes not getting caught in that behavioral trap.
Aviation is a great example of how a culture of safety can be built up. Driving culture in the US is markedly different. It's absolutely normalized to overtake a slow moving vehicle even when it's not safe and passing conditions are unclear, to be distracted and use your phone, to drive drunk, to drive along the shoulder of a crowded highway if you're in a hurry, to double park in an urban area if you "just need to stop and pick something up". The enforcement aspect is just the lagging edge of that. Hearing people talk, you'll casually hear "oh I accidentally bumped the car next to me in the parking lot while parking oops, I just reparked somewhere else." It shows; the US has the highest car crash incidence among developed nations by a long shot, with Canada a distant 2nd place.
The reason the US is considered a driving culture is only partially legislation and only partly infrastructure, it's due to a culture that treats driving as a loosely enforced activity where faults should be given the benefit of the doubt. This is the opposite of aviation where safety is emphasized in every part of the process and scary moments are encouraged to be reported anonymously through ASOS. Infrastructure is stressed as the ideal solution because it involves very little cultural change but due to a reluctance to raise taxes and aforementioned driving culture, people resist infrastructural changes which help non-drivers.
For aviation, I believe the fact that the "driver"'s life is at stake helps (also consider the perspective of the passengers). Comparing that to the imbalance between the drivers in a protective shell and the pedestrians on the road.
Pedestrian runs across the street and doesn't notice the oncoming car; driver starts to brake but the car doesn't stop in time. That is a very common type of accident that occurs even when the driver is going below the speed limit and is paying full attention. It is so common that drivers in suburban areas pay extra attention to the behavior of pedestrians, who very often run into the street for one reason or another.
Contrary to the popular narrative, not everyone who drives a car does so drunk, high, and/or too fast - a lot of people are actually very good drivers. Many (most?) of them do all of the recommended maintenance on the car in a timely manner. That doesn't mean that every driver has the reflexes of a racecar driver, and nor can you expect them to.
Blaming every accident on the driver by default and expecting jail time for anything with bad consequences is pretty toxic. Even the FAA doesn't do that for pilots.
Not a popular opinion, but in my mind every driver should at all times be prepared for a child to chase a ball onto a street. What that means in practice is a whole lot of inconvenience for drivers - but it is their responsibility and they should own it. Roads (other than motorways/expressways/etc) are not the exclusive domain of cars and people shouldn't assume that they are.
I will say this more directly than above: pretty much every driver going through a suburban neighborhood does prepare for a child to chase a ball into a street. Not all of those collisions are preventable, however. It takes time to engage the brake and it takes time for the car to stop after the brake is engaged. In that time, the car travels forward. In some cases, crushing a child. Even if the driver does everything right, a child still dies.
> pretty much every driver going through a suburban neighborhood does prepare for a child to chase a ball into a street.
Strongly disagree with this as a general statement. I live on a street near one of the several exits to my neighborhood. It’s not a sleepy street, but it’s also not a major road or anything overly busy. Being objective, I’d estimate that far less than 20% of drivers passing my house are truly prepared to stop for an unexpected obstacle and maybe ~2% are outright reckless (~50mph in a 35, DUI, fixated on phone, etc). The rest, and that’s most of us here, think they’re driving safe but are caught up in thoughts about their project at work, late for kid’s soccer practice, worried about a relationship, etc… and are mostly on autopilot for the conditions they routinely experience, but are not actively prepared for an outlier event.
pretty much every driver going through a suburban neighborhood does prepare for a child to chase a ball into a street
Where do you live? That's not how it is in my neighborhood, despite a 25mph sped limit that turns to a 20mph zone in front of my house (due to the proximity of a playground), drivers routinely drive 35+ mph. Neighborhood complaints have so far gotten a "Slow - Children" sign posted.
The one thing that helped for about a week was when they parked a radar speed trailer on the side of the street, it would flash a bright blue light when drivers exceed the speed limit by 5mph.
After they took away the trailer, cars started speeding again.
> pretty much every driver going through a suburban neighborhood does prepare for a child to chase a ball into a street
So why do most drivers appear to be much more cautious in a parking lot?
If drivers were truly taking more responsibility for the dangers they create for others, whenever they travel on a street alongside parked cars they would limit themselves to a speed that is at least unlikely to cause a pedestrian fatality (<30km limits are sometimes justified on this basis).
I mean, I get it - it would be incredibly inconvenient for drivers and as a society we have implicitly accepted the consequences of this convenience, but it doesn't abrogate the moral responsibility of drivers in my opinion. Just because everyone else does something doesn't make it morally okay.
That is a very common type of accident that occurs even when the driver is going below the speed limit and is paying full attention.
Do you have a source for this being a common source of pedestrian accidents?
Contrary to the popular narrative, not everyone who drives a car does so drunk, high
No one is claiming that.
and/or too fast
Ok, I'll make this claim, people routinely exceed speed limits, whether on 25mph residential streets or 65mph highways.
Blaming every accident on the driver by default and expecting jail time for anything with bad consequences is pretty toxic
The driver is in the 3000 lb vehicle, he should shoulder more responsibility. If drivers thought they'd face serious consequences if they hit a pedestrian, they'd manage to actually look for pedestrians instead of just giving a token glance. Try to cross on a walk signal in any busy town or city and you'll see how few drivers pay attention to pedestrians, I've actually been in the crosswalk and had to stop for a right-on-red turning car who didn't manage to see a person in the street in broad daylight.
> Roughly 68 percent of crashes resulting in a pedestrian fatality occurred at non-intersections in 2010
Also half of these pedestrian-driver crashes involve someone (pedestrian or driver) being inebriated, but they certainly do occur when the driver is paying full attention.
> I've actually been in the crosswalk and had to stop for a right-on-red turning car who didn't manage to see a person in the street in broad daylight.
I've been in the same position as you here, but I've had a lot more drivers wait for me. I've also seen drivers (particularly in Florida) acknowledge my existence by making eye contact before rudely turning directly in front of me. This particular piece of American car culture drives me crazy, too, but is not an indication of broad negligence or disregard for the lives of others.
I'm not sure how that backs up your statement that it's very common for a pedestrian to run across the street in front of a car that not only saw them and started braking appropriately, but was also going below the speed limit.
You want people thrown in jail for accidents where negligence was not involved?
Do you drive at all? You could be a perfect driver, fully sober and alert, and one moment's distraction can easily kill. Maybe a sudden glare in the window, or your misbehaving kid in the backseat throws something. It happens every day.
I don't see any social good to be gained from jailing people when negligence isn't involved. Human beings have failure rates. You're talking about taking an already horrible situation and destroying more lives and families.
Yes, I do. That should be a risk that you accept when you get in the driver's seat. It would affect behaviors positively by disincentivizing driving.
If you're unable to see what's in front of your 2-ton mile-a-minute machine because of a glare, maybe you shouldn't be driving a mile a minute? Clean the windows before you leave. Wear sunglasses. If the glare is "not that bad" so you don't regularly clean the windows and don't make sure you have sunglasses and occasionally someone dies because of this that is unacceptable. Glare does kill, as evidenced by increased collision rates when the sunrise aligns and misaligns with peak traffic - change the incentives so that people take steps to mitigate this.
If you're responsible for managing the behavior of a kid and also piloting a car, maybe you should have a second adult in the car. Maybe the kid should be in a seat they can't easily unbuckle, or not have access to toys they can throw in front of you. You should think about the risk to other road users and your potential jail time when you take your eyes off the road to handle some other responsibility.
Yes, I drive. Professionally! I deliver industrial equipment and travel all over the Midwest to perform upgrades, maintenance, and bug fixes on it. I take the safety of myself, pedestrians, and fellow drivers seriously when I have 20,000 lbs of steel on a gooseneck - more seriously than a lot of drivers I see around me. When I'm not traveling, though, I bike to work for 9+ months a year. And I've had my share of beer cans thrown out windows, and rearview mirrors hitting me in the butt, and coal rolled in my face, and panic from people scrolling TikTok and not seeing me until the last second. I haven't been killed yet, but I keep my life insurance paid up.
The burden of proof of negligence is problematic. Until we surrender additional privacy to a "more objective" monitoring system, it's too easy to murder someone with your vehicle and claim innocence.
When I'm riding my bicycle in a perfectly legal way on a roadway, and a driver gets irritated and tries to clip me, it's very difficult for me to prove that they acted in malice. If they clip me and I die hitting a guardrail, it's incredibly easy for them to claim it was an accident.
But that's an edge case and this type of culpability problem is common across many facets of humanity. The bigger issue may be that driving isn't treated with the seriousness it should warrant. In conditions where "sudden glare" is possible, one should drive their 4000lb vehicle at a speed that allows them to mitigate all but the most rare (freak) accident, like a 200lb alligator popping out of a manhole cover right in front of them. The human failure rate is real, but there's more we can do with process + tech + practice to mitigate it even smaller.
This level of care as a driver is directly counter to what the automobile industry wants as the image of their product: an easy, convenient and essential tool to be used every day.
> You could be a perfect driver, fully sober and alert
These people should not be jailed.
> and one moment's distraction can easily kill. Maybe a sudden glare in the window, or your misbehaving kid in the backseat throws something. It happens every day
By phrasing it that way, you also admit that driving is incredibly dangerous, essentially murderous in the aggregate. The right response then is that we need to establish a transportation system where a moment of inattention doesn't cause death and destruction. Traffic calming, slower speed limits, more mobility options (walk, bike, bus, train), ... and to the point of the article, smaller and lighter vehicles.
I mean this is just the consequences of our increasingly atomized car-dependent society going further and further down the chain of human misery. The average commute in the US is 26 minutes, meaning people spend roughly 1 in 16 of their waking hours behind the wheel, doing a task most people view as a begrudging obligation. Most people don't like driving, therefore they do not put great effort into driving, or seek to be better drivers which is why the majority of drivers are utterly mediocre at it. And because it's basically a necessity of life here, we can't genuinely punish people too badly for fucking up at it, no matter how deadly it is: our prison population is already massive on a per-capita basis, the last thing we need is even more people in that system.
The real problem is as the parent comment states, CAFE standards which have massively fucked with the incentives for car manufacturers to aggressively market previously SUVs and increasingly pickup trucks as family vehicles that are absolutely ridiculously oversized for their stated purpose (while also being remarkably and hilariously unable to actually carry cargo efficiently) and ludicrously inefficient, with all the blind-spots and difficulty to handle that that implies. Their higher stance and larger bodies make them infinitely more dangerous to pedestrians and smaller vehicles, which also incentivizes other drivers to buy the enormous fucking things, so if they get t-boned by someone driving them they don't have basically no chance of surviving. Which is not to say that a reasonably sized sedan can't also kill a pedestrian, but an Escalade has an infinitely better shot of managing it, both by size, and because the higher ride height greatly increases the odds of people going under the damn wheels.
Speaking of going under the damn wheels, there's been a huge increase in the number of kiddos going under the wheels of these big stupid things in recent decades, which is a uniquely American phenomenon occurring basically nowhere else because these enormous stupid vehicles do not make economic sense anywhere they aren't subsidized like they are here.
Trust me, it's not uniquely American. Cars have been getting bigger in Germany too, and SUVs are the most popular category here too. Ok, most of them are not as big as in the US, but there are some (ex-Dodge) Rams (even the name is scary when you think about it) driving around here too. Every time I see one, I wonder where they find a parking space for the damned thing...
I didn't argue either way. Just saying that the reality is many people walk away. I think your reasoning is the exact logic that a judge/jury use. No sense in ruining the drivers life because someone "ran in front of their car" (as their defense attorney surely argued).
I think appropriate justice is a spectrum and they often get it wrong.
For example, 10+ years ago a friend of mine was rear ended by a drunk driver while sitting at a red light. She died. The driver lost his license (because he was drunk) and got a year of supervision. He probably should've spent sometime in jail imo.
On the other hand, I'm well aware there are people sitting in jail right now that absolutely shouldn't be.
For clarity, the vehicular manslaughter laws referenced by parent commenter are specifically for when [criminal] negligence is involved (and yes parent commenter’s use of “accident” does imply absence of negligence, so I appreciate your calling them out, they don’t seem to understand the law):
> In cases of criminal negligence, the defendant is commonly charged with unintentional vehicular manslaughter.
No, the problem begins when you get in the car and begin driving it. I'm not pro jail in general so I probably agree with you there, but, you're speaking as though "driving at all" is a given. It is not and it is a big part of them problem that people have that view. It's honestly really disgusting to see this blase attitude. You must take responsibility for putting people's lives in danger and when you drive a car you are doing that, you make that choice every time you get behind the wheel. There are better, less convenient ways of transport, if you care about human life at the expense of your inconvenience you would use those, when you don't you make the choice to endanger lives. I still drive, this is the view I take every time I am behind the wheel, it seems the only responsible position.
This is completely false. Vehicular manslaughter carries a long sentence (2-4 years is not uncommon), especially if you are driving dangerously at the time. The driver can also get sued by the family of the person who was run over for massive damages.
This all assumes, however, that the accident was actually the fault of the driver. In many cases, it's actually not their fault, in which case the lawsuit from the family goes out the window and the sentence also tends to get reduced. The cases you are thinking of probably involved a pedestrian running into the street without seeing the car or a cyclist doing something equally stupid.
Notice that none of those are "vehicular manslaughter," which means no implication of actual criminal negligence/recklessness on behalf of the driver. You get the news story because someone died, but notice how they tend to be relatively light on detail. It takes two to tango, and bad car accidents usually have elements of fault from both parties.
In the examples you gave:
1. "a traffic offense for causing serious injury or death to a vulnerable individual while operating a motor vehicle"
2. "Despite that evidence, prosecutors declined to seek criminal charges against Vanderweit, saying her carelessness didn’t amount to vehicular homicide" - "Careless driving" is a charge they give drivers when the prosecutor wants to make a quick deal and doesn't think they can prosecute anything higher. I wonder if there's more to the story here given that there were at least 13 witnesses who could explain exactly what happened...
3. "pleaded no contest to overtaking and passing a cyclist without keeping a distance of at least 3 feet"
"Current laws in many ways do not give substantial protections to victims struck by vehicles. As legislative liaison for the Maryland State’s Attorneys’ Association, I would welcome any discussion and examine any changes proposed to the legislature. We share concerns about keeping our community members safe on the roads,” said State’s Attorney John McCarthy."
No need to close it: just demand a commercial license to drive one of those. Yearly check-up, learn to look at your blind sides. If you mess up, lose your job.
If those are getting tax benefits for being used by specialized industries, they should be treated as such. I want emission standards, but if you tell me that we don’t get a snowplow without exception, I’m amenable. Snow on the road is bad. Where we should all draw the line is having soccer moms do the school run in a snowplow.
Perhaps the light truck exemption should stay, but all exempt vehicles pay a punitive mileage tax. My feeling here is that pickups as _actual_ tool/utility vehicles is valid, but we should punish the use of such dangerous vehicles when they don’t serve a purpose. A tradesmen owning a truck that he uses to transport materials and tools is one thing. The dude who works in sales at a software company and has used the bed once since he bought the truck to go camping is another.
I’m not sure though, the overarching problem is that the US is vast, and what is good in one place is bad in the other.
A large 4x4 truck is a menace in a dense city, but a car is crap in places with poor roads and snow. Both are common.
> A large 4x4 truck is a menace in a dense city, but a car is crap in places with poor roads and snow. Both are common.
As someone who grew up in Colorado and now lives in Canada, a large 4x4 truck is a menace on poor roads and snow as well.
Trucks are heavy, with poorly distributed weight, and are harder to control in snow if they have a true (locked center diff) 4x4 system. A Subaru with snow tires is the stereotypical mountain car for a reason. If I have to drive an hour through a blizzard I'll take the car if given the choice
If you need a truck, you need a truck, but there should be much stronger limits on what is CAFE exempt, and what you can use a CAFE exempt vehicle for. Perhaps since the exemption is intended to avoid hurting commercial interests, CAFE exempt vehicles should require a commercial license and insurance.
You just need to make them look like Iveco Daily, VW Transporter or other similar european dropside trucks, which make more sense for businesses and no one will buy them for their attractiveness.
> but a car is crap in places with poor roads and snow.
That's a false dichotomy. 4x4 cars often do better on poor roads and snow, lower center of gravity is better if you don't need ground clearance, and weight distribution of a pickup isn't great for snow etc. unloaded. Of course this assuming actual roads, not off-road.
The whole 4x4 truck things is even more complicated - good off-road performance and good freeway performance are in many ways at cross purposes.
The real intrinsic value of a pickup is open air bed space (easier access than a van, but less protected), I don't mean they don't do other things well, just that is what the form factor gets you. The way the market developed they have also turned into the vehicle of choice for towing, but that's not intrinsic, just useful. Outside of 5th wheels, I suppose, where you need the platform. That isn't most towing in that size.
The % of light pickups is more a regulatory incentive and marketing phenomena than a reflection of real utility.
California already treats every vehicle with a bed as commercial (& thus weight fee), very rare exceptions. Although there are subgroups within that rightfully based on vehicle weight.
My FWD Volvo Station wagon would like a word with you
There are (or were) plenty of small cars that did great off road that are no longer sold in the US, if I was looking for a new car and could buy one in the US I'd consider something like the Sizuki IGNIS where it's got 4WD and can hold people comfortably.
This won't work because the people with the greatest need also have the least ability to pay. It would only make sense if you include a measure of how urban the area is.
The correct answer is to not directly regulate autos themselves, but instead to implement a universal carbon emissions tax that would apply to any and all sources themselves (e.g. gasoline, propane, cement, etc), proportional to the amount of carbon emitted. No carve-outs or exceptions. No offsets. No protected industries. No change with scale (volume discount). Then you let people/companies figure out all on their own how to respond to that tax.
And yeah, the chicken tax along with all the other tariffs can go.
Why can’t CAFE regulations just be modified to include these modern SUVs and trucks?
If the exclusions are removed then the manufacture cafe ratings across products will go down. Thus be forced to be more efficient and sell smaller cars.
People are stupid, and tastes can be manufactured. There's nothing set in stone in human psychology that Americans need an SUV. People are only buying because the current incentive structures, convoluted and interwoven as they are, converge in SUVs and trucks as the current default.
It's slightly different than that. The light truck sales essentially pay for all of the other regulations the politicians want. They regulate all other vehicles into unprofitability, but avoid destroying the manufacturers by allowing them to make all their money on huge "light" trucks.
If they didn't have this exception, they wouldn't be able to enact all the other regulations without killing the auto industry.
This is constantly brought up as the primary cause, but I think people forget that SUVs and trucks started their expansion in the mid/late 90s, before the modern CAFE regulations. The people demanded bigger and they got bigger.
We had entire news cycles about the size of the Ford Excursion and GM's Hummer 1 back in the day.
No. CAFE regulations started in the mid 70s. As it's evolved hand-in-hand with the auto industry, it's led to the death of the station wagon and the rise of the minivan, and only later did the proliferation of SUVs start.
Corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards are regulations in the United States, first enacted by the United States Congress in 1975,[1] after the 1973–74 Arab Oil Embargo, to improve the average fuel economy of cars and light trucks (trucks, vans and sport utility vehicles) produced for sale in the United States.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy
> but I think people forget that SUVs and trucks started their expansion in the mid/late 90s, before the modern CAFE regulations.
CAFE was adopted in 1975 and effective from 1978. Are you confusing "modern CAFE regulations" with the late 2000s narrowing of the "car" and "light truck" CAFE regulations (which, yes, did push automakers to try to push more vehicles that fell out of the "light truck" category, just as the earlier standards pushed from cars to light trucks), which has effectively shifted back the old gap after the actual (and more complex) modern (2011+) regulations came into play.
The CAFE regulations are not causing this, in fact they are acting in the opposite direction, making vehicles safer. More aerodynamic vehicles are more fuel efficient and more likely to have lower and more sloped fronts and thus are also safer for pedestrians.
Furthermore, vehicles with higher fuel efficiency tend to have smaller engines and thus also have shorter noses and more sloped hoods which make them safer for pedestrians.
The only connection with the CAFE regulations you can make is that they are obviously not strict enough. Especially when it comes to trucks and SUVs. And I fully agree with this. Stricter CAFE regulations would help not only with emissions but with pedestrian safety.
The main reason for the difference between a 1990s f150 and 2020s f150 is that people have been preferring to buy bigger trucks and Ford has catered to that preference by making the trucks bigger CAFE regulations be dammed. To their credit Ford has done some very good r&d work, trying to keep their ever larger trucks relatively fuel efficient, such as by their very well publicized conversion to aluminum. But they could and should be doing more and the government should be doing more to force them to do more.
The short version is there is an exploit to meet standards by increasing footprint that is easier to implement than to make vehicles more fuel efficient. That exploit needs to be nerfed.
Starting in 2014, trucks with a larger size were subject to less strict fuel efficiency requirements. This was because American automakers (who sell a lot more trucks) were unable to compete with foreign automakers that sold a lot of passenger cars that could bring their CAFE down.
However, the government screwed up the scaling factor and it basically became impossible to build a small truck, while larger trucks had much easier-to-meet requirements. That led to automakers basically abandoning the passenger car market, and upsizing trucks significantly.
> However, the government screwed up the scaling factor and it basically became impossible to build a small truck
Ford left the third generation Ranger to rot for nearly 15 years because people kept choosing the ever-increasing-in-size F-150. Chevy discontined the S10 back in 2004 in favor of the larger Colorado.
no, the regulations are to blame in a lot of the way. I'd love to have a tacoma that was the size of a small truck than the size of the tundra of the same era. the new tundras are absolute behemoths. there's a curve that the auto manufacturers are having to hit and the curve tightens every year and the requirements are also tied to the sqft of the truck. so larger footprint == less stringent mpg requirement.
Leaving a giant loophole for trucks and very heavy vehicles is why they are causing this, by incentivizing a class of vehicles to get heavier than they otherwise would.
Our Honda Fit was totaled by a Bigass Truck. Driver didn't see it over the hood and A-pillar as we were approaching from a point downhill and right of their vantage. An entire car they didn't see. I'm glad I was not on my bicycle or motorcycle.
In the US we’re terrified to take away someone’s access to a car because there are so few valid alternatives in most of the country. To the point where driving tests are basically a rubber stamp, and re-tests are nonexistent.
They did not. Cited, points, and I'm sure their insurance went up.
We got to fight with their insurance company to try to get enough money for another car and to cover medical expenses. That was fun.
Even though there was no contest that the other driver was at fault, I started driving with a 4K dashcam after that. And I found something interesting: I started driving more carefully myself because if there was an accident, I wanted the record to show I was blameless.
You do know that state-issued ID cards exist, right? They usually just say "Identification card" or something.
Yes, they look similar to a driver's license card, but so what?
We have ID cards. We have driver's license cards. The latter is so ubiquitous that there's really no reason to require drivers to carry both. Just allow the second to be used as the first. AFAIK, in most states, they're both issued at the DMV (or your state's equivalent organization) anyways.
I'm just really struggling to see what you're trying to get at. Your question is posed in such a way that I'm interpreting it to be an attempt at some sort of "gotcha" question.
They are often called driver's licenses, though, because it is so common that the official state issued id is a driver's license. In less formal language (in my experience) "identification" usually means random student id or bus passes or any picture id would be ok while "driver's license" means official state id or military id.
SUVs should cost like 10 times more than regular cars to insure. They destroy the environment and kill people and the only benefit is slightly better status signaling.
But guess what, the rates have not been raised since 1991! There's been some CPI inflation since then. The irrationality of Congressional energy policy continues evergreen.
Looking again, current regulation is even worse than first appears:
> This tax does not apply to minivans, sport utility vehicles, and pick-up trucks. Congress did not impose a gas guzzler tax on these vehicle types because in 1978, at the time the law was enacted, they represented a relatively small fraction of the overall fleet of passenger vehicles and were used more for business purposes than personal transportation.
And the proffered list of current vehicles is a 404!
They obviously have real tangible benefits. I regularly use my SUV to haul stuff that would not fit in a car while also maintaining the ability to fit passengers when I am not using that space. While being lighter than a van.
My grandpa hauled more in a cheap trailer behind a 23 HP, 650 kg Fiat 126p than you can fit inside an SUV. It was a little extreme but that's what everybody had.
You can fit more in a station wagon like VW Passat than in an SUV and it will be more efficient AND safer.
There's no reason to waste fuel every trip accelerating all that useless mass other than fashion.
I don’t know why, North America just doesn’t “do” trailers. It’s pervasive—many vehicles that are rated to tow a pretty reasonable amount in other countries (UK, Australia) say not to tow with them in Canada and the US.
My wife’s car is rated to tow 1,650 lbs unbraked… in Australia.
In North America, it’s rated “No.”.
Everyone here thinks towing == big truck, and I can see why they would think that. When I moved to an acreage everyone (including my wife) told me it was time to sell the “fun” car and buy a truck.
Instead I spent $500 on a 5x10 utility trailer.
I regularly tow that 5x10 utility trailer… with a Subaru WRX sports sedan. The thing weighs 3,300 lbs, has something like 280HP and 260ftlb peak torque, massive brake rotors, etc. At a 10% tongue weight, I can hit nearly 3000lbs on the rear end.
It accelerates and brakes like there isn’t even anything there. The only time I noticed any real difference was when I had ~2500lbs on there between the trailer and some concrete patio blocks. I had to downshift from 6th to 5th going up a steep incline to maintain a bit over 60mph.
I can fit a full 4x8 sheet of plywood or a stack of 8’ lumber in there without it hanging out the back (unlike most trucks). My car gets notoriously bad mileage, yet I still get better fuel economy towing the trailer than my wife’s crossover does carrying two adults. And when I’m done I take the trailer off and get sedan fuel economy.
Oh, and it can very comfortably carry four adults while doing this (five if someone wants to cuddle up in that middle seat). Rear seat will fit three car seats at once if your life has taken that sort of turn.
In the _very_ rare situation that that’s not enough… I can go rent something.
I have way more respect for people that can at least admit “I’m going to pay a $40k premium and burn twice as much gas because I want to.” rather than try to justify it as “I need to haul something twice a year and U-Haul doesn’t exist.” or “Yeah, but I need it for the snow.”. (That’s a whole separate rant, but snow tires people. I’ve used my car to pull Jeeps out of the ditch because they thought 4wd + mudding tires was a good winter setup.)
That went a little off the rails but… yes, trailers are the answer you’re looking for.
Because it makes them look uncool. See how Mazda discontinued the 5 for a bunch of CUVs that fit less stuff in the same footprint. Somehow a lifted compact car with slats for windows is cooler to the average person.
Although I feel like there's more variety here (Europe) for electric minivans having Citroen, Nissan, Ford, Fiat, Mercedes, Opel... electric models that don't seem to arrive to (or survive in) the US market.
Any modern car can haul some trailer, but plenty of ‘cars’ shouldn’t be used to haul plenty of trailers. Just because a vehicle can pull a trailer forwards doesn’t mean it can do
so safely. Brakes, suspension, or frame a
Stiffness may be inadequate. Please stay within your vehicles tow rating!
This video is obviously a joke (they aren't pulling it on a public road and they do it at a walking speed). It wouldn't be legal here :)
But this exact 23 HP 650 kg car can legally pull 400 kg trailer (as long as it has breaks - 300 kg without). And I've seen it done on public roads in 90s. Maybe it wasn't full capacity so let's say 200 kg but still. That's already more than you can fit in most SUVs.
A modern 100 HP 1500 kg sedan can pull more than most people will ever need. And they do - outside US. Somehow in US you need a 2500 kg truck to do the same. I just don't understand.
No, but I do need to put 3 kids into car seats and carry a lot of stuff at the same time. I don't have many great options. I sincerely don't understand what people with 4 or more children do in these situations, work vans? I'd love to get an 80s station wagon, honestly, but those don't exist.
More people at more weight for many minivans. My vehicle is the size I need for my needs. I don't need to hold 8. Why do I want to add another 1,000lbs to lug around. Your answer is worse for the environment than an SUV.
Oh wow, there are like 5 different classes of "SUV". This only further complicates conversations around this vehicle class. I drive a VW Tiguan, which appears to fall under the compact SUV.
A station wagon (essentially the same vehicle, but not as tall), or a minivan could do the same, surely? The only thing an SUV is better at than those vehicles is some serious offroading
Even then, SUVs and pickup trucks are poor choices for off-roading, due to being extremely heavy and having long wheelbases. For driving on dirt roads, they're fine, but then so is a station wagon.
> I regularly use my SUV to haul stuff that would not fit in a car
Depends on which SUV and which car, granted, but on average SUVs don't have that much interior room. Particularly given their huge size one would expect them the have huge cargo capacity, but most of them don't hold more stuff than your average sedan.
> While being lighter than a van
Not usually. According to [1] mid-size SUV average around 5000lb and full-size SUVs are 5300-6000lb.
Vans are from ~4000lb to ~6000lb with most models around ~5000ish. So weights are pretty much the same. Unless you have a tiny SUV, but then it can hardly carry anything.
Allow Australia to introduce the concept of: the ute. Functional tray and carrying capacity, without the pedestrian murder potential of the Yank Tanks™.
The problem with "cool" station wagons is the same as the problem with SUVs - they are less useful than "uncool" ones.
My father had VW Passat and now he has Audi A6. Passat Station Wagon (what we call kombi in Europe) fits 2 big bicycles inside without disassembling them. Audi A6 and similar doesn't even fit 1 because of the angle of the rear window.
Of course SUV also wouldn't fit 2 bikes inside, but still - you buy kombi for a reason. Making them cool to the point of breaking the usability is stupid.
I think that’s part of the idea of the whole VAG group though. The A6/Passat/Superb are all the same platform tweaked slightly for people trying to achieve different things. I’d say it’s a great setup.
I had not! Looks like it was the Sedona in North America until recently, which I have seen. Kinda looks like a minivan wearing a SUV trench coat. Not bad but I’m not in love ;)
Why outsource that cost to the private sector? Make a point-system for external-risk value on the road to other vehicles, pedestrians, etc. Figure in mass (yes, Teslas are risky too with their mass), bumper compatibility (SUV bumpers don't hit car bumpers), thick a-pillar blind-spots, pedestrian-hood-impact-behavior, frontover risk, stopping distance, etc.
Then assign vehicles with high external-risk-score a stricter regimen for infractions like speeding and higher registration fees.
You drive a Yaris like an absolute maniac? You can get busted a lot more times than the guy in the Rivian before they take your license away.
Then that leaves a huge part of the US that has no (or an extremely rare) need for that advantage. I can't haul a couch in my sedan, but I'm not going to buy an F-250 "just in case"
Large states like Texas may as well be considered several states for purposes of identifying trends. Houston hasn't had any snow since the freeze in 2021; we commonly go several years without snow that doesn't melt in an hour. So again, it wouldn't make sense to base a purchase on a rare event.
I'd like to see a statistic that shows what percentage of the US has persistent snow (say, 24 hours).
My AWD sedan is only worse than an SUV for snow driving in a single dimension: ground clearance. I can't drive over snow berms quite as high as those an SUV can. In practice this doesn't matter much, and the sedan is more (vertically) stable in the snow than an SUV. (Yes, I've driven both in these conditions, and vastly prefer the sedan.)
The main issue is that AWD/4WD in sedans isn't that common, while they're nearly standard on an SUV. But that's a matter of market dynamics (people think that SUVs are required for this sort of driving, which is laughable), not any inherent technological or cost limitation.
Great, now let's see the NHTSA (in the US) implement some pedestrian safety rules in car requirements. We have known this for years and just watched the pedestrian fatalities surge upward.
As a European I was recently disappointed to see Biden doing a photo op in an F-150.
I get that it was an electric variant and aligns with the green message. But to see the political gravitas of the POTUS backing up a design that arguably should not be road legal is very disappointing.
F150 is the best selling vehicle in the USA, you have to learn to walk before you run. It's a foot in the door. I think a lot of people of very high green bent don't realize you can't force people in a democracy to do things they don't want. If you go too fast then they will rebel and you get someone like Trump elected who will set it back 20 years.
I appreciate your point and I agree the outrage of "do not take away my truck" would cause whiplash, even if it is unnecessarily large and and wasteful and unsafe.
But arguably the arms race of large trucks in the US, Canada, Australia, is largely a viral meme that advertisers have managed to instill with insane profit.
It is not a product of exercising freedom but a product of Marketing psyops capturing reptilian brain urges from consumers. Quite succesfully I might add.
it's so scary when i see people on the streets driving vehicles where they can barely see over the hood. like i can only see the top of their head when i'm facing them head on. this means that they cannot see me at all.
how on earth is anyone comfortable driving around not being able to see where they're going?
> how on earth is anyone comfortable driving around not being able to see where they're going?
Because they’re not the one that’s going to get hurt.
But seriously, there’s some psychological thing going on with big cars. Like I drive a tiny car by American standards, and honestly don’t feel confident driving a big car, but I get it. You get to be higher up, which feels like you can see easily (even if objectively not true). It feels safer to drive a tank when every other car is huge (this is probably true). They have more storage, more space, which feels more comfortable. There’s probably nothing more damning than the incentive you have to be the biggest car on the road in case an accident happens.
Of course intellectually it’s obvious that big cars make roads dangerous overall, they’re bad for the environment, they’re more expensive, they require a bigger garage, etc, but it’s hard to get past feelings and bad incentives.
> Because they’re not the one that’s going to get hurt.
It's the prisoners dilemna. 2 small cars crash, they are both better off. 1 big car and 1 small car crash, the big car is better off. 2 big cars crash, they are both worse off. People choose the big one.
Friends of ours who lived for a long time in Scandinavia occasionally get Scandinavian visitors. Two out of two times so far when they've dropped by with said visitors in their rental vehicle to borrow the canoe, the rental vehicle has been the absolutely biggest, bad-assest one they could get a hold of. The kind where you'd have to stand on a stool just to really look into the engine compartment. Why? Well, yes, it costs more to rent and more in fuel, but it's just so... something.
Luckily here in Ontario, Canada, small cars are still somewhat normal, with about 1/3 of the road traffic being in the "compact car" class and certainly less than 1/3 in the "gratuitously huge truck/SUV" class. Most inbetween is compact SUVs and minivans.
Several friends and colleagues in Denmark have avoided driving in North America because the available cars were so huge.
A colleague and I cancelled a rental for a work trip (took taxies instead) as the only vehicle they had was some huge pickup, which neither of us were willing to drive.
I think it's far more common for Europeans to be put off from driving huge American vehicles than attracted to it.
I remember seeing a prankster passing in front of a car and miming stepping over a big obstacle. The driver looks concerned and steps out to check. Laughs.
Until I realized: they genuinely had to. The driver was not checking because they saw the guy jumping over nothing and were confused: they literally could not see what was below that guy’s belt. It’s one of those things (like “ads for tax prep software” or “kindergarten-appropriate shooter drill”) that feels quaint where you don’t connect the dots because you don’t know the country, but when you do…
It's really at the point where you need a bunch of cameras to get a 360° view of what's around your car.
I'd never realized how bad the visibility was before having a car with that feature. I'm surprised I haven't run over anything important in all of the years I've been driving.
Similarly, it always weirds me out when I'm behind someone and can't see their head or at least part of their face in their rearview. Tells me that they probably can't see what's behind them.
>how on earth is anyone comfortable driving around not being able to see where they're going?
Its not about comfort, its about style.
We see this in the tech world too. You can get a high tech, cutting edge feature rich, low cost, easy to use device. Or you can get one that has the cool logo on the back that makes your text messages turn blue.
It creates a negative externality because people are using outdated/dangerous/worse technology simply because its the style.
Also, the one with the logo and blue messages has guaranteed software updates for like 5/6 years, has great performance and is very comfortable to use, but who cares about that right?
But its cracked by Pegasus and Apple cannot stop them.
Updates where your data is being sent to the Apple homebase isnt a pro-consumer feature. Maybe Apple really is trying to stop Pegasus, but as a consumer, merely trying doesn't count. (Maybe it does if you are trying to rationalize your Veblen Good)
I had android for years, and I got tired of the buggy experience after a year of usage, and dying when I needed the most.
I switched to an iphone XR, and the phone worked perfectly for over 2 years, after which I gave it to another family member and I switched to a 13 pro.
Are they expensive? For sure yes, if you go top of the line, but even an older one works perfectly fine for 99% of people needs, and they will save you time and headaches for several years.
That's the selling point, they are easy to use, and last a long time (in tech world terms).
Honda has been pioneering lower front-end vehicles for years now. It's up to auto manufacturers to agree upon common bumper to bumper height so vehicles can sustain collisions.
Beside the overall looks, safety-wise, when I look at Cybertrucks, I cringe because they've abandoned the pedestrian knee height rule.
I’d rather have auto manufacturers figure out creative solutions to this problem rather than screw up auto designs for generations because of some broad-sweeping regulation.
What if it was something like crash safety testing, where an outcome (forces on a crash test dummy) is mandated rather than a specific design? You could have something like a visibility requirement (for instance, driver can see the pavement three feet ahead of their front bumper) and then car companies could figure out how to comply with this (lower the height of the vehicle, make a larger windshield, etc).
Although nice in practice but I’ve seen some Jeeps and Hyundai Konas with lights that look upside down (LED daytime lights on top, halogens on the bottom). All I can say is that they look ugly.
The fact that the market for cars is shifting in the direction of gargantuan pieces of metal is what finally convinced me there is nothing that can be done about global warming. Forget pedestrians, if everyone is starting to drive around in cars 1.5x - 2x the weight of the average car a decade ago, we are gonna waste a lot of energy.
Emerging markets don't buy small cars as a conscientious environmental decision, they buy them because it fits their budget. Small cars cost less than large cars to buy and run.
Flawed logic, most emerging markets have new road infrastructure only around main arteries and large city connections.
Unfortunately also road construction quality is lacking because of low budgets and/or corruption leading to faster degradation, often new roads are heavily damaged after a few rain seasons.
Which sucks because that just makes the roads crumble faster. The extra weight of EVs is a concern since they ALSO won't pay the highway tax that's included in the price of gasoline.
A car’s carbon footprint should also measure the wear and tear it puts on infrastructure. Plus, tire manufacturing is also petrol-rich. Last time I read, Model 3s go through tires very quickly. If that’s the case, EVs aren’t always the best solution.
My humble Prius sips gas, aerodynamically cuts through wind, and is overall lightweight but a giant Lucid Air, Tesla Model X, or Rivian is considered ‘greener.’ It’s hip to look like you’re saving the world but really, it’s greenwashing.
I'm honestly surprised there aren't more plug-in hybrid options. It seems like the logical stepping stone for car manufacturers because they can keep most of their existing production lines intact, the cars weigh less because they have smaller battery banks so they need less rare earth metals per car compared to a full EV, it reduces emissions compared to a standard ICE vehicle. I guess the greenwashing marketing has placed EVs at the top in people's minds.
That is true, but there could be a reduction of maintenance on hybrids as well, especially if the majority of stop/go driving is handled by the electric motors. Synthetic oils are sometimes rated at 10k miles before needing changed, so the ICE does still have maintenance but it's not so constant.
It seems like a sensible middle ground because hybrids are also cheaper than EVs in the US so it can get more pure ICE cars off the road.
Would you please stop breaking the site guidelines? I don't know how many times we've had to ask you this, but it's a lot, and you're still doing it regularly.
I don't want to ban you but there isn't infinite slack here. If you don't fix this, that's what we're going to have to do.
The thing is the "blunt vertical front end" thing has even taken over in the small car segment. My new 2023 Honda Civic, while not suffering in terms of forward visibility, has gone for the "squared off" look vs. the previous (2012) one. Here they are side by side...
US car and truck designs have been trending towards "belligerent" looks for decades. My totally unqualified armchair sociologist's theory is that these designs are closely tracking some overall American cultural trend towards aggression and hostility. As our society becomes more and more selfish assholes, our cars are aesthetically and functionally becoming assholes, too.
Increasingly heavy vehicles create a safety arms race that incentives every vehicle on the road to get bigger and heavier in hopes of surviving a collision with one of these behemoths.
Maybe instead crash safety regulations should hold vehicles responsible for absorbing their own kinetic energy. You want to make a 6000 pound SUV, well then you need to engineer in ways to reduce the damage it does to smaller passenger cars.
> While sloping front ends did not reduce the risk posed by vehicles with the tallest hoods, they did make a difference for vehicles with hood heights of 30-40 inches
And these benefits is fairly likely to immediately be countered by a lift kit by the end user, bringing them back up against the 40" problem range. It's amazing to me how often lift kits are added to pickups; amazing as in "it's not actually adding to the ground clearance beneath the diff, it's mostly cosmetic."
Anyways. Good article, but I have serious doubts their advice would ever be followed.
And those lift kit are more than probably not legal in Europe.
I’m amazed (and a bit jealous) of the amount of customization possible in the US. I understand the need of regulation but… it’s way less fun. More secure though, so, I’m conflicted.
In my country changing the color of the vehicle will trigger a need to recertify the vehicle. For the fucking color.
Given some of the absurdities I've seen personally on the road in the Midwest US, I personally wish for EU limitations. And yeah, I'm a boring "old" fogie who drives a Prius.
From rolling coal to 2' (.6m) lift kits, to effectively black windows and turn signals, to light bars used offensively against other drivers, reduced diameter dualie road tires with insufficient suspension support for all that torque... and that's just pickups.
Yeah. The roads are perhaps not the place for this kind of weaponized "fun".
I don't think many people care if these adjustments are legal simply because there is no enforcement. Here in BC, tinting your windshield or front side windows is illegal, tons of people do it anyway. You're supposed to have a license plate in the front, lots of folks here don't do that either. No one cares because police doesn't enforce any of the rules.
The huge Ford Excursion had an initial design flaw where it would do cool stuff like monster truck over smaller cars in a head on collision
>During the development of the chassis, Ford learned that its initial design caused smaller vehicles (such as a Ford Taurus) to become severely overridden in a head-on collision. In the test, the tire of the Excursion drove up to the windshield of the Taurus (reducing the chance of survival for its driver). As a response, Ford modified the chassis to include an under-bumper "blocker beam"; the device was initially tested by the French transportation ministry in 1971. For the rear of the chassis, Ford chose to include a trailer hitch as standard equipment in production to reduce underriding in rear-end collisions by smaller vehicles.
We've known huge vehicles are less safe for people other than the driver/passengers for at least 20 years. There's similar pushback on automatic driving cars...nobody wants to drive a car they know might make a choice to kill them to save others, and most people want their car to protect them at the expense of others.
Sadly, even in places that are supposed to be reasonably safe for pedestrians, high, large, heavy vehicles are becoming more and more common. The Netherlands has a suprisingly high frequency of Dodge Rams.
They're such a nice vehicle I wish I could own one. Especially the special models like the super bee or the srt10. Pretty sure you need to upgrade the tie rods if you want to do anything serious in them tho. But for me it's about as practical (but more preferable) as a Ferrari, since in my country the price can be on par with a Ferrari which makes then fancy shiny trucks more than a productivity vehicle
People rightly complain about men who want a “big strong masculine” truck for no reason other than bravado. But, people tend to forget that women are the primary ones who want the other problematic category of vehicle: SUVs. They wrongly believe them to be safer, (in other words, they buy them so they can feel safer) and drive 80% of all new vehicle purchases.
The people driving those types of vehicles simply do not care. As far as they're concerned, whatever fate the pedestrian has after they hit them is not their problem. If anything, the killing of a pedestrian that dared to step in front of their path is probably a feature to them.
Wait, I thought we got the higher blunter front ends because those were deemed safer for pedestrians.
Edit: My understanding (from memory) was that the lower, pointier front ends would kneecap pedestrians, causing them to impact the windscreen. Because the pilars around the windscreen are not designed to collapse, that is worse for the pedestrian. So, manufacturers made blunter front ends that would collapse in an impact.
Maybe on the planet Krypton where you live and everyone is like Superman you can get a steel front end to bend around you when it hits you, but here on earth hitting a person with that blunt front end is like taking a sledgehammer to a water balloon with about the same effect.
captain obvious here: put a pedestrian next to an SUV and you see the heights nicely match the most vulnerable parts of the pedestrian's body. add emotions (due to cultural wars) and significantly worse oversight and you get what we have. shame on everyone who was part in this kind of "progress".
My original comment was kinda ridiculous and was not worthy of a serious response ;) But, to respond to this more seriously, the people I personally know who drive gigantic trucks would most likely be proud of their reduced gas mileage. They already deliberately drive a 15mpg vehicle primarily for grocery pickup.
This essentially does exist in an urban environment due to fuel taxes. Still open debate if they're appropriately set (high/low) or if they funnel to the correct hands.
In an urban environment (excluding hybrids and electric vehicles) the weight will directly correlate with gas consumed. More weight -> more gas, more gas -> more taxes paid
Given how manufacturers love advertising how aggressive, violent, and deadly their cars are, I’m not sure they will try to bury those results. I’m 50/50 on them trying to change the news cycle on those keywords vs. going all in and hiring more ad executives from firearms companies, and starting to talk about penetration and resistance.
Think I’m off? What’s the next hot car coming out next month? Did it try to spin up the release with some word-of-mouth advertising “leaking” a photo of that car riddled with bullets on social media? Has that brand led the market in terms of practice in the auto industry?
One feels like one has a lot better overview with a higher vehicle. A higher, more vertical front doesn't seem a necessity for that, though. I wonder if a combination might have the lowest risk due to the overview combined with survivable hood (if one can't just take public transport in the first place). Are there vehicles like that?
No shit sherlock. After the decades of creating safety for the people inside the vehicle it's time to care for the others. You have airbags, belts, what not ... But that only makes you more careless, because you are safe in case of an accident.
Now do the same for the cyclists or pedestrians you might hit. Don't tell me that can't be done. Make the car slow when pedestrians are around you (20mph) and brake automatically before hitting someone and if it can't be avoided give them a soft cushion hit. If it can't be done that vehicle better stays out of any city.
> "Pedestrian crash deaths have risen 80 percent since hitting their low in 2009."
It's way too common to read articles where clearly cherry-picked prose takes the place of a more informative graph, only to lookup said graph and find that the article seems to be trying to intentionally distort the data to make some point.
Here's more complete data, the US population was 250 million in 1990, 330 million in 2021. So the 7400 that year was ~8400 in 1990 if it's adjusted for population growth:
That article lists the minimum death rate at 4109, and 7400 today. So it went from 4109/250000000=1.64x10^-5 to 7400/330000000=2.24x10^-5. Thats an increase of 37%. That's still shocking.
Sure, but now we've gone from an increase of 80% to less than half of that just by adjusting for population.
Now, why do you think they picked 2009? Were cars magically safer that year, or perhaps because it's the year after the economic crash, and therefore people were simply driving less?
Which was my point, not that there's nothing to be said about vehicle design contributing to this, but that it's annoying to read articles where the authors are clearly massaging the data to fit their agenda.
> It's way too common to read articles where clearly cherry-picked prose takes the place of a more informative graph, only to lookup said graph and find that the article seems to be trying to intentionally distort the data to make some point.
Huh? The article doesn't say anything about 1990. It says they rose by 80% after hitting their low in 2009. Population rose steadily from 1990 to 2023, so if you are trying to cite population increase as a factor in the rise from 2009 to 2023, you also need to explain how it didn't contribute to the drop from 1990 to 2009.
I would say that, actually, you are (perhaps unintentionally) distorting the data to fit your worldview while trying to criticize the article.
And then they back into parking spots! Every car since 2016 comes equipped with a backup camera that gives a wide view, but now they see nothing when they pull out!
Yea backing them into parking spots is a lot easier with a bigger vehicle and I'm guessing the camera helps then see if they'll hit another vehicle.
It's very easy to tell if a vehicle is leaving a parking spot, so use your pattern recognition given to you by evolution and don't stand in front of it.
It's very easy to tell if pedestrians are walking on a parking lot, so use your pattern recognition given to you by evolution (sic) and don't drive on them.
Personal responsibility, driver!
Not really if the car park is full and other vehicles are obscuring your view. At least being back in you can see a bit better. It's a danger in any type of vehicle.
It's like horses and mountain bikes on shared tracks, they can hear dirt bikes or snowmobiles coming so have plenty of time to move out of the way.
The rise in SUV and “modern truck” sales doesn’t help either. USA transportation infrastructure is fundamentally broken. We spend trillions of dollars (highway infra, street infra, parking infra, new builds and subsequent maintenance) on this inefficient transportation system and it’s slowly starving us to death.
We need to end this car centric transportation hell hole we are in. Make our infra as difficult as possible for these modern SUVs and trucks and suddenly the office workers commuting from age Styx will decrease (ie, make commute times soar, parking fines increased, decreasing available parking, narrowing roads, get rid of archaic “parking minimums” for buildings)
The suburban experiment is a tremendous failure supported by endless subsidies (federal, state, local). We need to be more efficient in urban planning. Give back the land stolen for highways, redirect them so they do not run through urban cores.
So much we can do. Yet this country continues to throw their hands up in the air and do nothing.
We ended up with this because SUVs and Trucks had reduced fuel efficiency requirements. When we have fuel efficiency requirements (mandated by aerodynamics[0,1]), SUVs bring their fronts down and curve them, improving pedestrian safety since more of the force comes from the hood instead of from hitting the ground.
We ended up with confusing fuel efficiency requirements because we failed to tax fuel appropriately. I mean for gosh sakes, fuel taxes only pay for a portion of road costs! We spend additional subsidies on top of that.
I agree, but those rules require a crumple zone under the hood (basically between the hood line and top of engine). I didn’t write the rules, and I don’t enforce them.
> Yet this country continues to throw their hands up in the air and do nothing.
It's not that. It's that most people in the US like car-centric culture, and like suburbs. They don't want to live in dense spaces and have to rely on transit.
I disagree with these people, but politicians are not going to be able to enact the things you've described without getting kicked out of office by the people who don't actually want them to do these things.
I think some people do like the suburbs (and they're allowed to), but the sky high housing costs in "nice" or "popular" cities indicate that there is unmet demand to live in dense walkable areas.
The car industry has been very very successful with equating driving with freedom though which makes this a hard conversation to have with people.
It should all be priced accordingly, you want to drive your private vehicle into my city? Then be prepared to pay a fair value for parking and road maintenance.
Both things can be true though. I agree that there's unmet demand in urban centers, but that doesn't mean that there wouldn't be a massive revolt if laws and regulations made the suburban lifestyle much harder or more expensive.
Fuck that I love driving, it's one of my favourite hobbies. I can and do drive for hours, 26 hours is about my max.
With my truck I know I can handle anything on the way and be self reliant. I can take lots of water. I can take almost all my tool for any repairs on the road. I can sleep in it. I can traverse off road terrain with the large off road tires. The 4wd can help with icy road conditions. I have a winch to self recover or help others in trouble. The large and bright lights and higher sitting position give good visibility of the road.
These things are popular because they engender self reliance which contributes to practicality and convenience for the driver.
Not everyone has a boring daily commute to a cubicle job in their tiny ev that has 100km range and coming home to put on nature videos while they run on their treadmill. Stop trying to make everyone fit into the same box as you
> Fuck that I love having my lifestyle subsidized by other people
Interesting that you're actually the one trying to make me fit in your box, when I said that it's fine for people to like what they like. Nobody's saying you can't drive your truck, go off road etc.
I would like to be able to travel the 1/3 of a mile without having conflicts with drivers when I'm trying to walk. Additionally I'd like the freedom to be able to get places with dignity without paying many thousand per year in costs associated with a motor vehicle.
Also since you brought up "self reliance" almost any bicycle is going to be way more repairable than a motor vehicle, and _much_ more reliable, more capable off road etc. Literally children can repair and maintain them.
> I would like to be able to travel the 1/3 of a mile without having conflicts with drivers when I'm trying to walk.
Why? Are you flipping off all the SUV drivers you see?
> Also since you brought up "self reliance" almost any bicycle is going to be way more repairable than a motor vehicle, and _much_ more reliable, more capable off road etc. Literally children can repair and maintain them.
Yes and you can still fit tent and stuff in your backpack or take a little trailer if you need. Way less tools needed. Travel lighter, less impact, access more places via skinnier tracks, it's cool. And you get a workout at the same time!
I modify and maintain my own vehicle, so making it back from a 6000km trip on road and off road is very rewarding experience as it proves your abilities at (technical) driving as well as at spinning spanners and camping conveniences. Can cover more ground in a vehicle, visit more places, see more sights. Take a few more creature comforts.
> The car industry has been very very successful with equating driving with freedom though which makes this a hard conversation to have with people.
It can't possibly be a "hard conversation to have" because people disagree with you, huh? It has to be that the car companies brainwashed them?
I see this everywhere on social media. "I have an opinion, my opinion is the right one, and if you disagree with me, you didn't actually come to an independent conclusion, you were just brainwashed or had an emotional response."
Nobody makes ads that make walking look cool or get you to where you’re going in style, because there’s nothing to sell you in that case.
They do make ads of cars taking shortcuts, going to nature, driving really fast, looking really cool etc (closed course, professional driver, do not attempt)
Demand as seen by prices and lack of affordability in walkable areas in the US is sufficient evidence that it’s an underserved market.
BTW You sorta proved my point at how convinced people are, and how it's such a hard conversation to have.
> if you disagree with me, you didn't actually come to an independent conclusion
it goes in line with taking rights and responsibilities away from the individual. You want to go somewhere? take the government's approved method of getting there. You dont like smelling urine or seeing trash or getting accosted/threatened by homeless at the train station? too bad, should have voted for my guy, he's 6 votes away from funding the next "program" to help fix it. Sorry we can't fund police, they don't respond to property crimes any more. we need to raise taxes again to fund the next $CHILDREN program, get with the times. and on and on.
I love living in the suburbs and have zero desire to live in the city. Being accessible by car, I can get to anything I need in 15 minutes. The people promoting 15 minute cities completely miss the mark here. I, and many others, already live in "15 minute cities" since we can get to anything in 15 minutes by car.
For me, it is great to be able to drive to Home Depot, then Target, then stop and get lunch, and finally return home with a load of goods that would have been impossible for me to carry alone.
As you mentioned, I will strongly vote against, and even campaign against, any politicians threatening my way of life.
Not the parent, but I lived 17 years in the heart of SF before moving to the country. I loved it in my 30s, but was pretty over it by my 40s. Now I love cooking at home, letting my kid play outside, and throwing parties without worrying about neighbors.
People like different things. The things people like change. Give the parent (and people like him/her) the benefit of the doubt.
Yes. I used to live in an apartment in the middle of city. It was easy to walk to lunch/dinner/drinks. It was great for those activities but absolutely awful for many others. Grocery shopping? Still need a car. Going to another part of the city where my friends are? Still need a car. Etc.
I enjoyed city living for a short period of time but it got old, very fast. It is NEVER quiet. Your selection of restaurants and bars is actually quite limited, or you’d need to taxi/Uber. And overall I felt my quality of life much lower.
Now I have a yard and a garage, extra storage in my house, and don’t have to deal with renting.
You're comparing living in a car dependant city vs living in car dependant suburbs. It's not going to be meaningfully different. You mention the constant noise, but what do you think causes it?
To see what everyone means by car dependency, you'd need to see the few places that aren't.
> Grocery shopping? Still need a car. Going to another part of the city where my friends are? Still need a car. Etc.
I think that we also need to understand the whys of some of this.
Grocery shopping or going to another part of the city to see friends should not require a car. If it does, that means the city's transit infra isn't sufficient for residents' needs. And the reason that's the case is because car culture is prioritized above all else in the US.
For larger grocery 'trips' I usually do delivery these days. But we also have a small grocer a couple blocks away (very well stocked, huge variety of stuff, great produce, etc.) that easily meets daily/weekly needs.
I do have a car, but I drive it only a few times a month. I fill up the gas tank once every couple months. I probably shouldn't own a car, but I can't kick the habit. It's great for long trips outside the city when we're doing some light traveling, at least. But overall I really dislike driving at this point in my life (absolutely loved it back in my 20s); I'd much rather take a train or bus, or walk.
The lack of quiet is an absolutely valid point. I personally just got used to it. I grew up in the suburbs and didn't move to a city until I 29 years old. That was almost 15 years ago, and I still love living in a city. But everyone's tastes differ here, certainly.
> Your selection of restaurants and bars is actually quite limited
I guess you picked the wrong neighborhood, if that's what you were looking for? Within a 10-minute walk I can choose among 15 or so restaurants, and seven bars. If I widen that to 20 minutes, I can add another 10 restaurants and three or four bars. And I don't live in a particularly dense or "party scene" neighborhood. At this point my partner and I pretty rarely leave the neighborhood for food or drink. And when we do, it's usually to meet up with friends who live in a different neighborhood, or to treat ourselves with something fancy/different.
> Life is MUCH better, for me, in the suburbs.
I'm genuinely happy for you! I personally don't care so much about having a yard, and we have all the storage space we need. (Frankly I prefer to constrain my storage space a bit, so I don't accumulate more stuff than I need.) We also own, so no need to deal with renting.
But I'm not trying to say you shouldn't live in a suburb, if that's what you want to do! My point is that I do think that some of the things that make cities unlivable for some people are the way they are because of decades of pushes toward car culture. Maybe fixing those things wouldn't sway you, personally, but I think there are lot of suburb dwellers who think, "I wouldn't mind living in the city except for X", and that X is actually something that's not hard to fix, if there was political will to do so.
And different people like different things. I live in the suburbs and there's somewhere on the order of 20+ restaurants I can get to within 15 minutes (and probably about 10 within 7-8 minutes. And I can also, like the poster you were responding to, go to several different stores, pick up a carload of stuff, and get back home.
If I want to do city things, I jump on the train (or drive) into a city and do city things for the day/night. But I don't want to live there.
Anecdotes are anecdotes. The fact is everyone loves their own preferences, because that's what preferences are.
When I lived in the suburbs it took me 28 minutes to drive to the grocery store. When I lived in a city it was a 4 minute bike ride to two different grocery stores.
> When I lived in the suburbs it took me 28 minutes to drive to the grocery store
Wow. That sounds more rural to me. I've lived in 5 or 6 different suburbs (of three different cities, 2 "major" ones) and never been more than 10 minutes from a grocery store; even when I had corn fields in my back yard and drove by cows and apple orchards on the way to the store.
Admittedly, it's possible I'm "dense suburbs" and you're "sparse suburbs"; there's a range. It's just.. 30 minutes is a REALLY long trip for a grocery store.
I think there's a pretty wide gulf between true "rural" areas and the most dense of the suburbs.
A 30-minute drive to a grocery store in a suburb doesn't surprise me all that much. In the 'burb I lived in during my teens, 15 minutes to the grocery store was essentially the best you could hope for. Add some traffic (pretty common most of the time) and that could easily creep up to 20 or 25 minutes.
(And yeah, I live in a city now, and I can walk to a very well appointed smaller grocery in about 3 minutes.)
And that's a very privileged position to take that makes you incredibly reliant on the benevolence of the trillion dollar oil gas, auto and insurance industry that have to pay constant microtransactions to play. It sucks for pretty much everyone else who isn't as privileged or wanting to be a pay pig for the multi-billionaires in comparison to being able to walk, bike and hop on a train.
Suburbia is subsidized —- the cost of infrastructure is often 10x the property taxes.
Millions of people are accustomed to paying $1,000/year in taxes to live on a street that costs $9,000 to maintain. “Asking” them to pay the true cost of their decisions is considered politically untenable —- until the city itself goes bankrupt.
> It's that most people in the US like car-centric culture, and like suburbs.
To put a finer point on it, people who like suburbs live in them. People who dislike them move elsewhere - forfeiting any voting rights they might have had where the problems are most acute. So who's left to fight the NIMBYs and car-lovers where it matters? Too damn few, by a long shot ... and this outcome was obvious to anyone who was actually thinking about society or the long term instead of just themselves and the next few years.
If you want to solve anything, instead of just shifting the problems around, you have to solve them where people are and will remain. Stay and fight. Unfortunately that's hard so almost nobody does it.
Ask the Dutch if they like their bicycles and the Japanese if they like their trains. They'll say yes. Funny that.
People like the environment they grew up in, it's part of their identity. Americans are no different.
Very few people go out of their way to meaningfully explore different approaches to life around the world and form an informed opinion on what they like.
That doesnt work in a democracy where the vast majority of people live that way. They will and do vote out people who make their driving life miserable.
One mayor in a town i used to live in partly got voted out by adding a protected bike lane that made driving tight in a busy central stroad to give one example
You say that it doesn't work, yet there's numerous examples across the globe of how it does work. Sounds like another example of "'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens"[0].
It’s not that you can’t achieve the goal, it’s that you can’t force people into it by making their daily lives worse. Or at least that seems like that would be the least effective political strategy.
OP suggested intentionally making commutes unbearable as a means of forcing people into cities to achieve this. That’s the wrong order of operations and would backfire politically imo.
Personally I work remote, so I would probably just go to the city less if it were made more inconvenient to do so. This has already happened to an extent. No free parking? I’m not going unless I have to. Public transit as it exists isn’t a good alternative either. It’s slow and I don’t want to be harassed by addicts at the bus stop.
Any plan that involves coercion isn’t something I’m interested in.
This is exactly it. You go with solutions that doesn't anger the car political class, like just building more rail vs. destroying car infra. You drag you're feet on maintaining the car infra. Traffic gets really bad, but man, the train is so much more convenient now, safe, clean and 3x faster than driving, your an idiot for driving man. You start running tearjerker ads about how an older person couldn't drive anymore, but now with a real transit system, they can still get around. Then people don't really drive that much and the car infra starts getting replaced by buildings because that makes more money, etc, etc.
There are places that have torn down highways and deliberately made a hundred million people’s lives so difficult they are compelled to move? In the name of transportation efficiency?
Which such places, could you be specific about that?
My understanding is the inverse has happened. Where there are now highways through the middle of cities west of the Mississippi, there used to be homes there.
I'm skeptical that US road engineers did anything other than add roads and lanes to improve vehicle throughput. Examples to the contrary would be very interesting.
They are not compelled to move, they are compelled to vote out the politicians who enacted such things and vote in politicians that fix it in their eyes. Why do you never see debates about highway project costs, but in the USA there are a billion of them about transit project costs.
Yeah, I’m skeptical of that claim as well. And if someone tried it on me I’d tell them and their city to go fuck themselves, not move there. I can’t be the only one with that attitude.
I don't think the top comment is advocating this be foisted on everyone. This will work a lot better if everyone acknowledges it, makse a cultural shift and then policy will follow. Obviously that's not easy, but it can happen.
You need to think a few more steps ahead. Other politicians will see that political dead body and stop doing that, and might start doing or stopping things that would've improved things if the status quo hadn't been negatively effected.
On the contrary. You want politicians who will get elected and do the right thing, still knowing it will end their political career. The outcomes are what matter, not duration of tenure.
“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.” ― Leonard Bernstein
You are putting together 3 or 4 different things here.
> Make our infra as difficult as possible for these modern SUVs and trucks and suddenly the office workers commuting from age Styx will decrease
While personally attractive to me, this is a losing proposition. Lots of people have (unfortunately) locked in usage of these vehicles; and will vote out any changes to car-centric infrastructure.
In my opinion, a better and more practical way to do it is:
First, clamp down on the manufacturers with regulations. Set super low speed limits for these things -- safety and road damage are obvious rationales. No truck should be able to go above 60 mph; that alone will make them much more unattractive.
Second, increase registration taxes slowly every year on these large vehicles, to reflect the increasing burden that they pose to society. That will go the rest of the way towards making sure carmakers turn their focus back to smaller, more sustainable cars.
A massive rework of our infrastructure is attractive, but not necessary.
You don’t even need to go that far (and speed limit restrictions would never fly anyway), just increase registration fees for vehicles bigger/heavier than X unless the vehicle is certified (under penalty of perjury) commercial use only. If these drivers had to pay 5 grand a year for registration, they might rethink life.
How many pedestrian fatalities are there due to collisions with trucks going more than 60 mph? I'd guess very few, because nearly all the places with speed limits above 60 mph in the US are also places with few pedestrians. Often they are places were pedestrians are prohibited.
these limitations are common in the US insofar as many places, particularly more rural areas, it's not safe for these types of vehicles to be going faster. These vehicles require a separate license to operate and have completely different concerns, such as riding their brakes on a downslope causing the brakes to get so hot they stop working and you get runaway semi's that cannot slow down and become dangerous.
That these types of vehicles have specific laws applied to them does not naturally stretch to applying them to 2-axle vehicles since these same dangers flat don't apply to them.
Semi's are required to have properly functioning mud flaps, this in no way implies a corolla should ever be required to have mud flaps installed.
Make the cities safer and cleaner, just like my suburb, and I’ll move back. If I have to step over shit, needles, and bullet casings when I go outside, forget it.
If this is what you want then you should look at cities that developed pre-World War II or look at creating your own. Cities that are "car centric" are less about some obsession with cars and more that people buying a place to live didn't want to live in dense urban areas: https://www.newgeography.com/content/004453-urban-cores-core... One comment that stuck out to me on this page was:
> The central cities with the largest functional urban core percentages have overwhelmingly suffered large population losses. Among the 25 with the largest urban core shares, only seven were at their peak populations at the 2010 census, and only two of the top 18 (New York and San Francisco). Overall the cities with large functional cores lost more than 35 percent of their population and 8 million residents.
Given this stark difference in preferences, why can we not have cities designed to be carless and cities that are designed to include cars as well as other modes of transportation? I live in Portland where I'm walking distance from the train station, have multiple bus stops around my house, and the average street speed is 30 mph. I can drive ten minutes down the road to get lumber, feed, etc and avoid paying an $80 delivery fee which probably doesn't sound like much until you need to reorder a single board and pay $86 for a $6 2x4.
Takes like this don't help, imo:
> Make our infra as difficult as possible for these modern SUVs and trucks and suddenly the office workers commuting from age Styx will decrease
This kind of message, intended or not, is hostile, divisive, and non-inclusive.
I find it hard to take any mention of "preference" at face value in these sort of conversation.
People arguing for suburbs never, ever, ever acknowledge that the only reason that costs are cheaper outside of cities is because huge amounts of money are taken from those cities to fund the suburbs.
Much of this money shifting is done at the federal level (subsidized HUD/USDA loans, huge grants, regulations that massively favor cars) so there is no escaping it by moving around in the US. Some states are better about the balance, but there is no getting away from it.
> huge amounts of money are taken from those cities to fund the suburbs.
Isn't this just a more crude representation of "we live in a society"? In my city I pay a tax that allows people to have child day care despite being childless. I pay a tax that funds local schools despite not attending one and not having a kid. I pay a tax that goes to make agricultural products cheaper. I pay a tax that subsidizes medical care. Would you object to those as well, or are those okay? Additionally, many of the things you've described as subsidizing suburbs also subsidize cities. HUD would need to exist even if we lived in dense urban areas. USDA, the US Department of Agriculture, would still need to issue loans to farmers unless you believe that only massive farm operations should exist, and grants still fuel much of city development: https://www.hud.gov/press/press_releases_media_advisories/hu....
In my view cities, suburbs, and rural areas are an intertwined ecosystem that cannot exist without each other. Try to remove one or expand one too much without the other and bad things happen. This argument that cities subsidize everybody else ignores that cities are largely reliant on goods, services, and workers from outside of said city.
Big point of resistance here is going to be public safety. I would live in a city alone as a single man. I wouldn’t live in a city with a family. At this point even suburbs are becoming a questionable option as many cities have little to no options that are both safe and affordable, so you have to go out to the exurbs instead.
And where are they more likely to be hit by one? Probably in a denser populated area with heavier traffic. You can’t just wave a magic wand and make all the cars go away.
Regardless, you have to make cities a desirable and affordable place to live for this to work at scale. You can’t just fix it at the transportation infrastructure level.
If I’m looking for affordability, low violent crime, and good schools, I am not looking anywhere in the city where I live. It didn’t used to be this way, but post-covid housing costs are so high that I have to go 40+ minutes out of the city to get those things. If you don’t change that, many people with families are just going to deal with traffic being worse rather than moving into the city.
> And where are they more likely to be hit by one? Probably in a denser populated area with heavier traffic.
Data doesn’t support this.
> For example, pedestrian and bicyclist deaths and deaths at intersections are more prevalent in urban areas, whereas a larger proportion of large truck occupant deaths and deaths on high-speed roads occur in rural areas. Although 20 percent of people in the U.S. live in rural areas and 32 percent of the vehicle miles traveled occur in rural areas, 40 percent of crash deaths occur there.
> Regardless, you have to make cities a desirable and affordable place to live for this to work at scale. You can’t just fix it at the transportation infrastructure level
I agree with this which is why my original post was talking about multiple points.
Need changes at urban planning level, zoning, getting rid of hostile building codes (ie, parking minimums), making roads narrow, reducing dependency on cars/highways, re-investing in high quality public transportation.
>And where are they more likely to be hit by one? Probably in a denser populated area with heavier traffic.
Most people killed by cars are in cars. How do you stay out of cars? Don't live somewhere you need one. Want to put yourself at risk? Live 40+ minutes out of the city and drive 20,000 miles a year.
I mean, that's your bias. I'm raising my family in a big city with no car. They're teens now. Spent the whole time in public schools. It's never really been a problem.
This used to be feasible where I’m at, but housing prices are too high now. Spending $3k a month on a mortgage isn’t realistic for the vast majority of people.
The problem is that in the past companies tended to have to flock together. You're a financial conglomerate, you had to be on NYC, you are a OEM manufacturer for the automobile industry, well, the idea is that you sort of had to be on detroit. You're a startup founder? you need to be in the bay area.
So, you end up with those giant clusters of activity and people had to somewhere be able to live close to them. As people started making more money, starting families and having kids, they wanted to move into more enjoyable living, not everybody is a fan of living in a rat cage in a soviet urban project like most HN and urbanists seem to love. So, they voted for those freeways, they found the freedom to live in more humane settings in the wheels of a car that allowed them to escape the nightmare of living on Gotham.
I believe we can have both things. We can have cities, but we don't need to have only a couple of giant, nightmarish big cities. We just need to spread the business activity.
> not everybody is a fan of living in a rat cage in a soviet urban project
> more enjoyable living
> freedom to live in more humane settings
> nightmarish big cities
You appear to be arguing as if this was an axiom--cities are this way, and you struggle through it until you can leave. As if the goal is to make bank and leave the city. But this is the cycle, not the cause. It does not have to be this way, and in many places (many European cities, Japanese and Korean cities, and more) it isn't this way. Tokyo is huge, for example, and it is very much not "nightmarish". Nor London, or Paris. Certainly in all these places there are space tradeoffs, but that is very much different than the only reason to be there being to suffer through.
At least in part, cars cause American cities to be this way. Cars are too big for city streets; cars push people out of cities at night making for different concentrations of activity, and so on. This article is a decent enough jumping off point, top of mind because I read it literally today: https://thedeletedscenes.substack.com/p/keep-on-trucking
I believe we can have liveable, walkable cities, and it has nothing to do with "spreading out business activity".
"a rat cage in a soviet urban project", "nightmare of living on Gotham", "giant, nightmarish big cities"
Your words show a huge amount of bias and are pretty uninformed by actual history.
The idea that suburbs are better for families is betrayed by the fact that those suburbs are a pretty recent invention and the fact that housing in cities has much higher demand than suburbs.
>> "a rat cage in a soviet urban project", "nightmare of living on Gotham", "giant, nightmarish big cities"
> Your words show a huge amount of bias and are pretty uninformed by actual history.
So did the ones that they were replying to, making it clear that they believed everything about suburbs is bad.
> The idea that suburbs are better for families is betrayed by the fact that those suburbs are a pretty recent invention and the fact that housing in cities has much higher demand than suburbs.
There are a LOT of people that have no urge to live in a city. And, in fact, there's a lot of people that live in cities because that's where the jobs they want are (I doubt the same is true of people living in the suburbs).
Wrong. Most people used to live in rural zones. Suburbs are just an attempt to replicate this. Maybe not the best way of trying that, but the way that was possible after industrialization moved most people to giant cities.
Well, yes, if by "not making commuting miserable" you mean "build a lot of transit, convert roads and motorways to streets, and somehow cure people of their car addiction". But yes, you also have to cure people and planners of their single-family house addiction.
I didn't say that, and it's obviously not what a normal person would take to mean from that sequence of words.
The spending needs to be on building more housing, better housing, more affordable housing, housing closer to work. Single family or multi family? Whatever the people need, neither will exclusively work if people want both.
If you don't do that, it doesn't matter how miserable you make the commute, people will still do it because the alternative for them is not going to their job and becoming destitute.
What if we had cities, but smaller ones and made sure companies and business opportunities were not concentrated in a few points? We could enjoy the benefits of high demographic density that matters, while having walkability.
If we have zoning requirements for building residences, why not quotas for the number of companies allowed in a city, in a county, in a state? Why the fuck everybody needs to live in a ratcage in NYC, because every fucking oligarch feels like he needs to have his bank HQ in Manhattan? Why can't we have a few dozen smaller high density urban centers instead on this day and age?
something like "sorry Mega Company, we already have MegaCorp and MegaEnterprise here on this city, the quota is over, have you considered PleasantVille for your new HQ? I hear they have a free quota after MBA Business Machines finally fold down and closed their offices there. "
What about industry? Do you want megabuildings like they have in Taiwan, where the company owns the whole building with grocery stores, laundry, apartments, and a factory all in the same building?
How's the air quality in cities where they do that?
Around 15% of registered cars in Germany are SUVs, and 40% of the new cars bought in H1/2023. So yeah, the SUV plague is very noticeable here, too, though I don't think SUVs make up 80% anywhere in Europe, yet.
And also, SUV in Europe often refers to compact or sub-compact SUVs. Ie. the best selling SUV in H1/2023 in Germany was a VW T-Roc [1]. Ridiculous super-sized cars like the F150 and its ilk are still quite rare, fortunately.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_T-Roc I was "upgraded" to one when renting, once. The visibility was shit due to its fashionably small windows and the trunk volume was pathetic compared to the hatchback I had ordered. Otherwise, very little difference.
What we pay in efficiency we gain in freedom: I can go wherever I want whenever I want however I want.
Do I want to drive to Yosemite on a Wednesday afternoon in my F-350? Yeah. Do I want to drive down to the Safeway one late evening because I just ran out of eggs? Yeah. Do I want to drive down to Costco this Saturday to buy the next month's worth of foodstuffs and supplies? Yeah. Do I need to drive down to the pharmacy to pick up some prescriptions? Yeah. Do I want to drive across the country in my motorhome over the course of a month? Yeah.
Being tied to public transport means you are beholden to them with regards to when, where, and how you travel. That ain't fun in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Of course, that's just why we all drive our own cars. I haven't touched on why trucks and SUVs in particular are also seeing higher popularity.
The answer to the latter is simple: Bigger/heavier cars are safer when crashes happen and can transport lots of cargo, and being higher up means we have better line of sight and thus awareness of our surroundings. The bigger engines usually found in SUVs and trucks also means the car handles more swiftly, which is indispensible for hopefully avoiding dangerous situations should they occur.
> I can go wherever I want whenever I want however I want.
Except of course if you like walking and caring about all the health benefits that come from not needing a 5,000 pound vehicle to do the most basic elements of life like going to a coffee shop, a local diner etc.
> Do I want to drive down to the Safeway one late evening because I just ran out of eggs? Yeah. Do I want to drive down to Costco this Saturday to buy the next month's worth of foodstuffs and supplies
By simply from the brands referenced above, you seem to live in a very templated suburb that has been copied and pasted verbatim across the country. Being around nothing but epitomes of generic large-scale cookie-cutter grocery stores, where each location is indistinguishable to each other, fast food restaurants serving factory-made food, retailers at strip malls lacking any character etc. is the exact opposite of "freedom" to me. It's dystopian and conforming at its very core.
> The answer to the latter is simple: Bigger/heavier cars are safer when crashes happen.
Except unless you are on the receiving end of these monstrosities, or worse yet, you happen to be a pedestrian. This argument that bigger/heavier cars are safer is incorrect even at the most fundamental level for drivers, because taken to its logical conclusion, if everyone drove bigger/heavier cars for safety as a reason, the net effect would lead to everyone being worse off and unsafe, as two large cars colliding are far more dangerous to both parties than otherwise.
I'm actually on the side of a small mountain, can't see my neighbours through the thick forest around me. It's anything but a templated suburb here.
The town is just a few minutes' drive away, though, with most of the common modern amenities one could want. If I want to go shopping at Costco that's a 30 minute drive away on the freeway to the neighbouring city.
Incidentally, the "cookie cutter" stores are all quite distinguishable. The people around here are all wonderful, so they give each store their own little identity and flair.
You're arguing against urban policies in cities from the point of view of rural areas. Nobody's trying to make remote villages walkable.
A heavier vehicle is only safer in a crash when crashing into a smaller object. All you're doing is increasing your own safety at the cost of everyone else's.
>You're arguing against urban policies in cities from the point of view of rural areas.
Keep in mind that a "city" can be more rural than most people realize.
For example, the town that's 5 minutes' drive away is legally designated as a city (it's the county seat, in fact) despite the population being just under 40,000 and the surroundings being as rural as it gets. In terms of physical size, I can drive across the entire city in 5 to 10 minutes assuming I don't get stopped by traffic lights.
A neighbouring city in the same county, and I believe it's the second-most populace city in the county, has a population of just over 2,000 and can be driven through in less than a minute. Yes, it's legally designated as a city.
>A heavier vehicle is only safer in a crash when crashing into a smaller object. All you're doing is increasing your own safety at the cost of everyone else's.
Yes, and I have no qualms about that fact. We all take steps to better our own place in life, sometimes at the cost of others. I'm doing it to someone, and someone's doing it to me, no big deal.
It's not like bigger and heavier cars are restricted only to the wealthy either, so you can't even argue this is wealth inequality.
It's funny that popup headlights were banned in the name of pedestrian safety. But we can't tax SUVs and trucks proportional to the amount of damage they inflict on the populous and the environment because...well that would be hard.
Is this article confusing correlation with causation? What about a tall/blunt hood, but not lengthy... has that been tested? Is there anything about where and how these vehicles are used that factors in? Has driver training maintained quality over the years? In theory, I understand the incremental loss of visibility, with longer, taller hoods, but this article just seems lazy. I hope the underlying research is actually better.
Up until recently I figured that driving was the most dangerous activity I engaged in on a regular basis, but nowadays I'm convinced that walking near an active roadway is worse. I have lost count of the number of near misses I've had due to inattentive drivers basically in tanks. The problem is significantly more noticeable after moving to the east coast where turning left or right without checking for pedestrians is the norm, and it's on you to watch for cars when you are walking regardless of what the light is and who has the right of way. And yes, car designs with massive pedestrian-sized blind spots is making this all that much worse.
I previously lived and worked in Uptown in Dallas TX. I had a 1 mile walk to work which I thought would be awesome (barring summer).
What it actually was was a game of leap frog.
At 5pm thousands of middle aged men in button ups driving GMC Suburbans, Tahoes and F250s would be released into up/downtown with the sole goal of getting onto the highway as fast as possible so they could get to their suburb 30 minutes away.
Pedestrians were just interruptions. Right on red? GUN IT! Red light? HA! Scooter crossing the road? Run it over!
I wound up almost never walking to work those few years because of how ridiculously mad max walking through Uptown at 5pm was. I saw probably 10+ people on scooters get hit by cars.
That part of the city would've been really cool if there were pedestrian bridges at every major intersection. But that's not much of a Texas thing.
Wish it were another way but reality being what it is, one has to assume invisibility when it comes to cars (and buses and trucks). Assume they don't see you. If you're about to step into a crosswalk, check not only for crossing traffic but turning traffic. Be ready to dodge out of the way or wait. Even if you have the "right of way" you are going to lose if a vehicle hits you.
I make an important modification to this pattern. Whenever visibility is good, I act assertively when I cross streets, whenever my right of way is not in question. I leave just enough time to not be hit by the vehicle, but I don't hesitate nearly as much as other people. I want the driver to be uncomfortable, I want them to know they're doing something wrong, if they choose to go for it. Very often this is the difference between them deciding to cut me off and actually braking and yielding the right of way.
If pedestrians don't take what's theirs (in a safe manner), there are just far too many drivers who will ignore them. Fixing that will take decades, best case, but I want to walk around my neighbourhood as a first-class citizen now. So I do.
Disclaimer: I am tall, visible, only do this in good visibility, and live in Canada where driver behaviour is a bit better. If the situation is borderline, I never tempt fate, rather I throw my hands up in the air and make it obvious that yes, I hereby assert that this driver is being an asshole.
> I leave just enough time to not be hit by the vehicle
We need laws (and enforcement) that make it so that taking risks with pedestrian safety can be ticketed (or other consequences).
I've had experiences recently (in TX) of people forcing my action to avoid being hit. Had someone essentially play "chicken" with me where they were actively accelerating through a crosswalk timing it just so that we do not intersect. (but they were increasing velocity in such a way that if my trajectory were to change, such as tripping, stooping to pick up something I dropped etc, I'd be hit hard).
And many will say "Call the police" but the fact is in a large number of metros (including Austin and others in Texas), the police do not respond to much if anything. A lack of enforcement and consequences (on behalf of the perpetrator) is equivalent to a lack of laws entirely.
Absolutely, where I live pedestrians have right of way at all intersections, which includes some pretty busy wide roads the drivers think they own. When I'm crossing I don't stop at the curb and wait for it to clear, I'll enter the first safe lane, usually the parking lane.
Sometimes I'll do a big exaggerated step showing drivers that I do not intended to stop, unless they choose to kill me. I won't actually step into a lane when a driver might not have seen me so I feel safe doing it, but it breaks drivers expectations that they own the road.
What you said, but I'm considering carrying a rock now. Drivers seem to think I'm disposable for committing the crime of walking somewhere. Middle fingers are only so memorable, but that ding in the paint or a window might help them remember I have the right to not be hit in a crosswalk.
You most likely will be punished more severely by the law for denting a car with your rock than a driver would be for killing you with their car as long as they were not drinking or ran away from the scene of the crime.
I don't read that comment as victim blaming at all, it's just a statement of our sad reality: it's de facto legal to murder someone in a car so long as you're not inebriated and you stay at the scene and plead your innocence.
As a general rule I go out of my way to not piss off drivers, not because I think they're in the right, but because they can murder me with impunity and they know it.
But we live in the kinds of society where a person has rights until they prove they shouldn't. Not the potential, but the actuality. Now I think the middle ground might be better enforcement of near misses... "No harm no foul" needs to be removed from the mindset of traffic cops.
A rock thrown at a vehicle moving at speed can be (and has been) charged as attempted first degree murder. There are not really any victims in this scenario.
The driver of the vehicle (vehicles cause a dozen 9/11s worth of deaths a year) is armed. Only person that can stop a bad guy with a vehicle is a good guy with a rock.
I've always wanted some kind of throwable sticker that says "Watch out, I don't know how to drive!" That's close to what I yell when people playing with their phones almost hit me when I am bike commuting, "learn to drive!"
I doubt you would actually do this, but even if you did, I don't see how you could seize the opportunity. Meaning by the time you knew to strike, the car would have to be less than a few feet away, right? Once they pass you, its impossible to hit them. Unless you just wanted to fire on anyone who didn't obey the ped xing (which isn't usually the same thing as a close call).
Toss some caltrops in the road in front of drivers who would choose to kill you for their own convenience. Or use one of these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N3D4J58
I want to carry a large illuminated weight on a fishing pole that I can hang at windscreen height in front of me, so I can claim the space I have the right of way to, without risking my body
Yep. As I lay dying on the ground, bleeding from every orifice, my organs and bones crushed to a fine pulp at the blunt end of a BMW X7 going 50mph. I will reach for my gun and shoot my assailant.
Yep definitely a real plan that solves real problems. /s
[edit] Or was the plan to prevent the collision in the first place? As I see the driver coming for me, murder in their eyes, I will smoothly draw my weapon, shoot the driver through the windshield, leap into the air and sail smoothly over my assailant's steel battering ram, executing a perfect three-point superhero landing as my fellow pedestrians cheer.
I'm not specifically advocating that everyone carry guns -- I was just responding to the phrase "that's how you get shot". Entitled drivers should recognize their own mortality in the event that they threaten pedestrians with a gun.
I'm sure this works in some places, but if you try this somewhere like Philadelphia or New York (or indeed most of the USA) you'd be "asserting yourself" from the hospital.
I walk far far far more than I drive. My wife and I share one car and she almost always has it. I walk and pick my kids up from school every day and to stores, etc.
All this to say: I don’t mind waiting for traffic to pass and I find your aggressive style to be distasteful, dangerous and annoying. That said, I will still stop for you 10 feet away and smile as I think of terrible words in my head.
I think you misunderstand “Right of Way”. It’s not just an option for a pedestrian to cross, it’s incumbent on them to maintain predictable movement through the intersection.
Giving up Right of Way creates more confusion (think about the “go” / “no you go” game of a car not moving when it’s their turn at a 4-way stop).
If you don’t want cars to stop for you the solution is easy, stay far enough back from the intersection so it’s clear you’re not trying to cross. Otherwise I will stop for you — it’s the law.
So what about kids? They're usually not the best at that game. Are they not allowed to become autonomous beings because there are killer tanks on the move?
We're Free(TM) here. Autonomous roaming kinder will get you a visit from Child Protective Services.
Major dense metros with viable transit are more immune to this, middle schoolers aren't unheard of but ridesharing probably has raised the threat level.
When running / walking downtown, I feel noticeably safer crossing illegally in the center of a one way road than I do at the cross walk when the walk sign is on. Reasoning: at a crosswalk I have to deal with cars coming from 2 or 3 different directions, including behind me. In the middle of the street, cars are only coming in one direction.
It's not pretty, but in reality, "right of way" is a path to the hospital as a pedestrian. It shouldn't be, but their worst-case is a paint job, while mine is a jumble of broken bones.
This isn't unique to being a pedestrian. You need to assume invisibility if you're a cyclist or a motorcyclist or even in another car.
Even if you're in a car and have right of way, if another driver doesn't see you and collides into your car, it's going to ruin your day. The consequences aren't as bleak as if a vehicle collides into your body, but it's still pretty negative, and it's in your best interest to avoid a collision regardless of who would be determined to be at fault.
Your job as a driver is to see me. I'll go ahead and start crossing with enough time to stop if you keep ignoring me, and one of two things will happen: either you'll see me and brake, or you won't see me and I will stop, but it'll be clear to all involved that what just happened is wrong. This way, you know you're being an inattentive dick by not seeing me in time, and I'll stay safe and alive.
These kinds of handy one-liners and behaviour patterns are a big part of the problem. I shouldn't have to make eye contact with you, relying on you being semi-awake and not having illegal levels of windshield tint. Screw that, pay attention.
While you’re not wrong, being absolutely in the right won’t save your life when they do fuck up.
EDIT: lol - Downvotes for calling out reality always cracks me up. IMO, you're free to value being right over remaining alive. But life doesn't give two fucks about being right.
Right? Even when you remove selfish and inattentive drivers from the equation, you still have a human behind the wheel of the remaining vehicles. Those humans may be subject to things beyond their control such as glare, a sudden mechanical issue, a sneeze, or will simply make a mistake an humans are prone to doing. As a pedestrian we can’t blindly place responsibility for our own safety solely in the hands of the driver. It is still a shared responsibility.
When they do fuck up, what will save my life is the fact that I accounted for this ahead of time and left enough space/time to react to it and not die. Really, my original comment covers that.
Practically yes, in the sense that not getting run over is a high priority. However, we should repeat that it is the drivers’ responsibility to be alert. That pedestrians have to take this sort of measure is a general failure on the part of our driving culture.
And are the only ones incentivized to, given the asymmetric danger between driving and walking. Drivers would be a lot more cautious with big spike in the middle of their steering wheel. Externalized risk (and unlikelihood of facing consequences if a driver were to maim or kill someone) has a very predictable outcome.
I’ve lived in places where crossing areas have little buttons that set of flashers, but really it would be safer and put the responsibility where it belongs if that button would shoot a bollard post up in front of the crosswalk.
That doesn't work anymore. Due to steeply sloped windshields and tinted windows, a pedestrian usually will only see a reflection of the bright sky, not the driver.
I teach my kids rule number one as a pedestrian: You never have the right of way. Legally you might, and it's important to go when it's your turn after you've made active eye contact, but realistically the car will always win that fight.
Waiting for eye contact is also becoming more difficult as more people are blacking out their front windows, effectively obscuring everything in the car even through the windshield.
And here in Ohio driving with your high beams on all the time has become normal and I'm seeing more people with rear facing light bars too. All, I assume, breaking laws that appear to no longer be enforced.
Two of the times I’ve come closest to getting hit were in crosswalks when the driver appeared to look at me, the car slowed down, seeming to yield and then hit the gas.
In the second case the driver stopped after, and told me she’d slowed because she was blinded by glare and then decided to just keep driving.
I don’t even know how you teach that one to a kid — never cross the street?
Seriously. That's how I've always described it. I drive a large vehicle. You will lose. Get out of the way. Use common sense and move. I like that. I'm going to put that on my car: "Yield To Gross Tonnage". Good shit.
And the majority of them have been hunted to near extinction, in some cases not even because they're particularly dangerous, just because it's fun to shoot things. One person indeed stands no chance against such a beast, but that's why it's always a group of several people that takes the job on, and they come armed, and with a plan, and they don't stop until it's dead.
People are very good at this, possibly too good, which I assume is why there are laws against doing this to drivers.
Yep, I was going to comment on the blind spots. The massive A-pillars, especially, on newer airbag-equipped vehicles, makes pedestrians simply disappear. I have to constantly stay on top of it as a driver, and as a pedestrian/cyclist, I often see people turn their heads directly in my direction but they CANNOT SEE ME as their entire head is blocked by the pillar.
I found this post[1] to be a really informative read about why we don't see things near pillars.
---
At a traffic junction all but the worst of drivers will
look in both directions to check for oncoming traffic. However, it is entirely possible for our eyes to “jump over” an oncoming bicycle or motorbike.
The smaller the vehicle, the greater the chance it will fall within a saccade.
This isn’t really a case of a careless driver, it’s more of a human incapacity to see anything during a saccade. Hence the reason for so many “Sorry mate, I didn’t see you” excuses.
The faster you move your head, the larger the jumps and the shorter the pauses. Therefore, you’ve got more of a chance of missing a vehicle.
We are effectively seeing through solid objects, with our brain filling in the image.
Additionally, we tend to avoid the edges of the windscreen. The door pillars on a car therefore create an even wider blindspot. This is called windscreen zoning.
But it seems the only bug-free solution is to isolate pedestrians and vehicles at every crosswalk :) E.g. elevated overpasses or underground tunnels which are not practical.
My neighbor was recently hit while walking her 4 year old and pushing her 1 year old in a stroller. In this case, the driver was making a left turn and as he completed the turn he did not see her in the crosswalk. On that road, it's not easy to make the left, so my assumption is they were solely focused on finding a gap to make the left. I can think of lots of improvements they can make: a crossing guard since there's a preschool there, some crossing flags, a turning lane, etc. But all solutions still seem to rely on driver's not making mistakes.
Slowing down traffic via traffic calming does wonders for pedestrian safety. When cars are moving slowly, drivers have more opportunity to notice pedestrians and crashes are less likely to cause serious injury or to be fatal.
One other option there is to add raised crosswalks or a raised intersection, depending on the situation. That physically slows down cars as they enter the space where pedestrians may be.
Bollards, intersection daylighting, narrower streets, leading crossibg signals, raised cross walks, no right on red, fewer unrestricted left turns. Just a handful of things that can be done to make drivers drive in a safer manner without explicit coercion.
I appreciate you pointed out the difference between east and west coast car culture.
here in the bay area, pedestrians treat cross walks like magic force fields. Drivers have to stay alert. I try to teach my kids: the rest of the world is different. They will run you over and keep driving.
Honestly I wish pedestrians would just cool it a bit here. It’s almost a power game for some. I find myself hanging back from the corner until traffic has passed so I can cross without holding everybody up.
(I seem to have attracted the ire of car haters with this one. Heh.)
This paper seems to not have controlled for vehicle weight, which is the most obvious thing I could possibly think of being a confounding variable (specifically, total force applied). They specifically call out the variables they controlled for on pages 9 & 10 of the paper (https://www.iihs.org/topics/bibliography/ref/2294).
I love watching the people who never have to drive through a field, haul hay, or take cows to slaughter make assumptions about the needs of the people who do. Manufacturers won't make shorter vehicles that work for our needs, so the F-150 will remain the standard until they do. No, a Subaru will not work, nor will a minivan. Regulations are killing the usability of newer vehicles. Kill the regs.
I drive a Tesla and a 1987 F-250. Make the better alternative to my 9mpg monstrosity, and I'll buy it.
Interesting and hopefully engineers can continue to improve on cars form factors in this regard. But the main reason fatalities are up is simple and obvious: cell phones and increasing use of mind and mood altering drugs in all their forms, of which legalization of marijuana has played no small part. The impersonalization and disconnectedness of modern life, and reduction of family and community connections, has also led imo to general recklessness and disregard for humanlife by a certain percentage of drivers who needlessly risk the destruction or maiming of others in street racing or other criminal recklessness so they can get a short lived adrenaline rush. E.g. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56154795
Yep and this is precisely why I drive a big pickup. Not because I need it, not because Im trying to flex, but because it weighs almost twice as much as regular cars. My wife works in a hospital, she sees the victims of drunk/distracted driving everyday where they are not the ones at fault. If it was plausible, I would drive an even bigger one.
Once cars are fully autonomous or have mandatory drug tests to be able to start ignition, or we have more severe punishments for driving accidents, then ill gladly sell my truck. Until then, if you hit me with a regular car, you are gonna get fucked up, ill be mostly fine.
There is a whole bunch of factors that make the the risk of someone crashing into me is much higher than me crashing into them. The first one being that I spend more hours riding my ebike than driving my truck. And before the ebike, I was riding a motorcycle a lot, technically putting myself in a whole shitload of danger.
So overall, I have probably contributed less risk to drivers around me over my hours commuting then they have to me.
His impact will be essentially zero if he's a responsible defensive driver. I've had a license for 30+ years, have driven millions of miles, and have never, not once, been at fault in an accident.
This is true. But from a moral standpoint, I have to deal with the fact that anyone has the ability to ingest alcohol and get behind the wheel of a car, and there is nothing I can do about that. So others just will have to wait a bit to see around my big truck. Thats the social contract we are making.
And this is precisely why I fly the Supermaneuverable Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker E Advanced Fighter [1]. Your puny truck stands no chance. Man up and dogfight me.
