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Effects of large vehicles on pedestrian and pedal-cyclist injury severity

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Re: Effects of large vehicles on pedestrian and pedal-cyclist injury severity

#61

Post by kqr »

asdff wrote: post #39
mc32 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are three trends: bigger mass, larger sizes and taller vehicles. Which one of the above is the most consequential? I'm guessing height. at 2500 or 5000 lbs, neither is going to be pleasant when you bang in to it. size maybe there is more surface area to get hit by, but that's unlikely to be significant. mass does influence stopping distance though, so that could be, but at the same time we now have large disc b…

Also, shape. Go look at the front end of a car like a ford F150. The hood is flat and sits 4 feet high. Now go look at a more compact car like a prius. The hood is low, and is angled like a wedge smooth into the windshield. When a prius hits you, its liable that you will just roll up and off of it and not get much of the force from the impact as a result. When an F150 hits you with its 4 foot tall wall of a grill str…

"Just roll up and off of it" makes it sound like a pleasurable experience. The majority of serious injuries happen not upon collision with the vehicle, but when hitting the ground afterwards. This applies for any vehicle shape, but in different ways.

Re: Effects of large vehicles on pedestrian and pedal-cyclist injury severity

#62

Post by kqr »

asdff wrote: post #47
ramraj07 wrote: post #36

Honestly as an upper middle class or rich American it looks like one of the more dangerous things you could do is probably go out cycling in a road shared by these monster machines. If you crave physical activity so much there’s many other alternatives. When I lived in College Station Texas I had to use a bike (because I was broke) but I stuck to the sidewalks, rules be damned. And even in the sidewalk had to keep an…

The odds are in your favor to be honest. I live in a city of 4 million people. 10-20 cyclist die a year. I'll roll those dice when the variance is that high. I figure I bike safer than the average biker I see on the road anyhow, so my odds of survival go up even higher. Probably not a small number of those accidents involved intoxicated bikers or mentally ill; I see a lot of people, clearly out of their mind through…

Something else that improves your QALYs: cycling. Of course, it's about exercise more generally, but if you don't have time to exercise only, doing it while commuting is clever!

In most locations in the world -- my null hypothesis includes the US here too -- people who commute by bike (for all its risks) live longer and are sick less than those who do not.

Re: Effects of large vehicles on pedestrian and pedal-cyclist injury severity

#63

Post by garvield »

Auracle wrote: post #59

I drive a Camaro. I can’t fit an infant seat behind my driver’s side seat, and I sit abnormally closer to the steering wheel than most. Never mind a larger child seat. Ok, you’re saying - but that’s a Camaro. Well, said Camaro is in repair at the moment and they gave me a loaner. It’s a Chevy Sonic. I also can’t fit the infant seat behind the driver’s side. To be fair, it’s a subcompact. However, even in my wife’s CX…

There is another form factor: station wagons. I don't know why they have fallen so out of fashion in the US, they are such practical cars. Fit a family of four? No problem. Need material for your project? Fold the back seats and fit full sheets of plywood.

Not even the full size SUVs has as much space as a regular old station wagon.

Re: Effects of large vehicles on pedestrian and pedal-cyclist injury severity

#64

Post by dvzk »

esoterica wrote: post #53
dvzk wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a different cycling experience to live in an area with 30+ continuous miles of a paved and forested riverside bike trail and 50+ miles of interlaced dirt trails. Cars can barely be a threat consideration most of the time.

That's fine if you're cycling as a hobby, but if you're cycling as a means of transportation you're going to need to take the roads most of the time. Most of the places you are going to are not going to be next to a forest trail.

It is kind of irritating for a commuter to dismiss competitive and fitness sports as hobbies, but that aside, the aforementioned trail parallels a major highway and it’s used by thousands of cyclists and commuters each day for the majority of their routes. Some toss their bikes onto the lightrail and bus racks at the end to avoid roads.

Re: Effects of large vehicles on pedestrian and pedal-cyclist injury severity

#65

Post by kqr »

emmelaich wrote: post #6
sonofhans wrote: post #3

> Findings suggest larger vehicles are involved in pedestrian and pedalcyclist crashes with more severe injuries that result in higher hospital charges. I've commuted 10s of thousands of miles by bike the last 30 years, mostly in an urban environment. This doesn't surprise me. I can't read the whole article, and the excerpt doesn't offer any data or speculation about the causes of this. So, with some experience, I'll…

Agree with your speculation. Here's another one. Even WHEN THE DRIVER sees you, some subconsciously ignore you. I'v had people look straight at me, keep driving then looking shocked when they finally realise and hit the brakes. I can only surmise they perceive traffic in terms of threats. When you're in a bigger car, threats are reduced.

At one point when biking to work I stopped at an intersection and filtered to the front. The head vehicle was a huge yellow thing built for construction work. I turned my head to see if I could see the driver (then at least he would have a chance of seeing me) and you know what he did?

He understood what I was doing and pointed straight at me to indicate he had noticed me.

This is something I've started doing when I'm driving now, too. I wish everyone did it.

Re: Effects of large vehicles on pedestrian and pedal-cyclist injury severity

#66

Post by jimbob45 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #36

Honestly as an upper middle class or rich American it looks like one of the more dangerous things you could do is probably go out cycling in a road shared by these monster machines. If you crave physical activity so much there’s many other alternatives. When I lived in College Station Texas I had to use a bike (because I was broke) but I stuck to the sidewalks, rules be damned. And even in the sidewalk had to keep an…

When I lived in College Station Texas I had to use a bike (because I was broke) but I stuck to the sidewalks, rules be damned

This was essentially my strategy too. Bike lanes in the back streets, exclusively sidewalks on the risky streets.

Re: Effects of large vehicles on pedestrian and pedal-cyclist injury severity

#67

Post by fomine3 »

serf wrote: post #9
sijwbebdjj wrote: post #5

Americans are driving bigger and bigger vehicles, which cause even deadlier accidents with smaller vehicles and pedestrians. It's a big problem. Here's a good video on the problems with Americas increasingly large vehicles: https://youtu.be/aIy5uv5-VrE

> Americans are driving bigger and bigger vehicles.. vehicles have gone up in size globally. this might be driven primarily by the whims and desires of the US market, but it's by no means isolated to the United States.

I (and decent amount of people live in Japan) are unhappy with most car models become big for width (except JDMs and subcompacts, it's fortunate them exists). It become big because car is generally developed and sold for global market, rather than domestic.

Re: Effects of large vehicles on pedestrian and pedal-cyclist injury severity

#68

Post by NegativeLatency »

kqr wrote: post #61
asdff wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, shape. Go look at the front end of a car like a ford F150. The hood is flat and sits 4 feet high. Now go look at a more compact car like a prius. The hood is low, and is angled like a wedge smooth into the windshield. When a prius hits you, its liable that you will just roll up and off of it and not get much of the force from the impact as a result. When an F150 hits you with its 4 foot tall wall of a grill str…

"Just roll up and off of it" makes it sound like a pleasurable experience. The majority of serious injuries happen not upon collision with the vehicle, but when hitting the ground afterwards. This applies for any vehicle shape, but in different ways.

Been hit a couple of times, I’d be dead if I went under instead of rolling over the cars

Re: Effects of large vehicles on pedestrian and pedal-cyclist injury severity

#69

Post by twelvechairs »

ramraj07 wrote: post #36

Honestly as an upper middle class or rich American it looks like one of the more dangerous things you could do is probably go out cycling in a road shared by these monster machines. If you crave physical activity so much there’s many other alternatives. When I lived in College Station Texas I had to use a bike (because I was broke) but I stuck to the sidewalks, rules be damned. And even in the sidewalk had to keep an…

> I stuck to the sidewalks, rules be damned

Sidewalks can be the most dangerous place for cycling when cars come out of hidden driveways quickly. Maybe not where you are (perhaps there's good vision with big verges and/or big yards with no front fences), but this approach cant be applied safely in many areas.

The real underlying issue of course is a disparity in street design between care for vehicle passenger safety (the primary job of extensive codes and standards and those who enforce them) and cycle safety (at best a side concern in codes, and often the codes are poorly researched and enforce impractical solutions that don't help the end users)

Re: Effects of large vehicles on pedestrian and pedal-cyclist injury severity

#70

Post by KennyBlanken »

donw wrote: post #28
yboris wrote: post #14

Exactly on topic: a philosophy paper " Vehicles and Crashes: Why is this Moral Issue Overlooked? " by Douglas Husak. Author argues that because of the high crash incompatibility with other vehicles (and pedestrians), SUV driving is immoral - imposing an oversized amount of harm to others with no proportional safety for self. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23562447

The big problem -- pun intended -- is that vehicles are de facto required by law to be huge. Imagine if we had cars that were built like cars from the 80s -- smaller, lightweight, tons of visibility, minimal equipment -- but with modern engine technology and a few of the electronics that don't add much weight, but add a ton of functionality (like 360-degree cameras). I'll take the road noise, less interior comfort, a…

European cars have to pass Euro-NCAP crash standards which include pedestrian safety tests. It's not the mass or overall size that's dangerous to pedestrians, it's the nose/hood profile and height.
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