U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#351

Post by vwcx » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:49 PM UTC

sidewndr46 wrote: post #266

luxurytent wrote: post #11

I guess pickup trucks fall under the category of SUVs? It's wild how we've lost access to our streets and neighbourhoods for the convenience of mostly suburban vehicle users. Actually not wild, but disgraceful. The majority of roads are too wide and with little options for alternative modes of transport, drivers are growingly frustrated and angry on the road. We continue to make the mistake of thinking the solution i…

The reason why drivers are increasingly angry where I live is because there is no enforcement of traffic laws at all. Red lights are run nonstop, drivers use bicycle lanes as travel lanes, etc. I watched someone just reverse down a road opposite the direction of travel yesterday. Like it was no big deal.

Agreed. Sometimes I feel that most traffic laws only exist to serve as stand-in probable cause for forces' own agendas.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#352

Post by cmh89 » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:49 PM UTC

johnea wrote: post #86

luxurytent wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, some areas in particular the big box developments are almost a lost cause. What needs to happen to those first is large, dense development within the plazas. Build residential on top of the mall, remove parking lots (or move them underground), and densify first. Once you move that needle, you can focus on active transport options. The type of development I describe is happening (two examples in my Canadian city)…

In this analysis, pickup trucks and SUVs are identical, in that they have high vertical grills that obstruct the driver's view of the area immediately in front of the vehicle. This vehicle configuration is the major cause of the increase in pedistrian accidents. However I was surprised the article didn't mention pedestrian behavior at all, which is clearly increasing the risk of pedistrian accidents in recent years.…

>My experiences with pedistrian near misses have been when people step in front of my car while staring at their phone

Which means you failed to see the pedestrian a yield to them. You caused the near miss.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#353

Post by c_crank » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:50 PM UTC

faefox wrote: post #344

Americans are slaves to cars. We treat the ability to drive a monster truck to the grocery store as a sacred right and anyone who would dare impede our progress for a handful of seconds (pedestrians, yes, but ESPECIALLY those rotten tree-hugging cyclists) are to be scorned and intimidated at best, summarily executed at worst. We've hollowed out our cities for parking lots and leveled neighborhoods and green spaces to…

[flagged]

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#354

Post by aidenn0 » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:50 PM UTC

sidewndr46 wrote: post #330

camdat wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think the pedestrian getting hit cares whether the car is 2,999lbs or 3,0001lbs.

I always think the same thing about federal gun restrictions in the US. I can't imagine someone getting shot and thinking "I'm so glad he didn't shoot me with a barrel shorter than 16 inches!!!"

Clearly the barrel-length restrictions were intended to be about how easy they are to conceal. There was an attempt to draw a distinction between long-guns and hand-guns.

The NFA ended up exempting pistols, which results in the strange situation where manufacturing a pistol to fire a .223 Remmington is legal, but shortening an AR-15 is not.

Perhaps if they only exempted revolvers it would make more sense.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#355

Post by mbauman » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:51 PM UTC

egberts1 wrote: post #241

Just a few moments ago, two pedestrians just jumped out in middle of a four-lane residential street that has no crosswalk for at least 400yd in either direction from behind a hedgerow. Didn't see it but lucky i was traveling 10 below speed limit (in a 40mph speed limit) My "S"pecially "H"igh "I"ntensity "T"ooter emitted a 142 dB sound and the glee of watching both pedies startled and scurrying faster across the stree…

I see that anecdote as a sobering reminder of the state of our roads and drivers. That sounds like inappropriate infrastructure (a 4-lane residential stroad?) combined with a person who prioritizes their ability to drive as they wish over others' lives, and who takes glee at their ability to dominate others, and a legal framework that empowers them to do so.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#356

Post by aidenn0 » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

sidewndr46 wrote: post #333

aidenn0 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two numbers on the sticker for fuel efficiency. In-town and highway. For in-town weight matters greatly (both because you essentially throw away energy every time you break, and because rolling-resistance matters more at low speed). For highway, up until 2008 the maximum speed tested was 55, which disadvantages heavy-vehicles, as rolling resistance is a higher component of energy used at lower speeds (as a…

The thread was specifically about a road trip. I can't imagine anyone taking a road trip entirely in town.

I've done road-trips entirely off of limited-access highways.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#357

Post by camdat » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

pc86 wrote: post #325

camdat wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think the pedestrian getting hit cares whether the car is 2,999lbs or 3,0001lbs.

I mean this is obviously false. The heavier a vehicle is, the slower it needs to be going to cause a certain amount of damage, up to and including death. How many pedestrians are hit every year? If you can lower the average weight of vehicles on the road you're directly saving lives.

This assumes two vehicles of similar dimensions.

An aerodynamic 3,001lb vehicle would be much preferable to me than a 2,999lb flat-front. The physics imply only a portion of the heavier vehicles energy is imparted to me.

I don't make the comment to argue that weight isn't meaningful, but to say that "lethality" of a vehicle has many factors.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#358

Post by jscipione » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

NPR presents, speculation but little facts. Can I get a racial demographic of the drivers and pedestrians? It says that the largest increase of accidents was in the Sun Belt and Florida, could the large influx of new Hispanic drivers since 2020 be the cause? I have no idea there’s not enough data presented to make a determination one way or the other.

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#359

Post by BluePen7 » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

rationalist wrote: post #320

jacurtis wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no reason a 1/2 ton pickup should be bigger than a 1994 Ford F150 It is funny that we still call trucks like the F150, Ram 1500, Silverado 1500, etc as 1/2 ton pickups. Even though they are still officially categorized like that by all the manufacturers, Edmunds, Motortrend, KBB, and so on, they are actually essentially 1 ton pickups. Our "light-duty pickups" (which is their official classification) are act…

FWIW, I doubt my neighbors see all the stuff I haul in the bed, or the trailers I pull, when my truck is not parked in my driveway. I still think people who delete their diesels or lift their trucks, etc are compensating though. I just won't judge a person who has a standard pickup truck.

I owned an F150 because there's a weird premium on anything smaller, it was cheaper than a Ranger or Tacoma.

Eventually just switched to an economy car with a trailer hitch, and it was somehow mind blowing to everyone that a Toyota Camry could haul 2000 lbs.

I was hauling a motocross dirtbike, 200lbs (trailer was maybe another 400), if it was a 200lb person any small car could seat 4 of them.

When I switched to a sports sedan and wanted a hitch all the forums were like "Just get a cheap truck", for some odd reason they only sold the hitch in Europe.

Seems like the solution to anything slightly heavy or large is "Buy a truck that can haul 2000lbs". Meanwhile my old Scottish dad would remark to me "We used to haul caravans with cars smaller than this!"

Re: U.S. pedestrian deaths reach a 40-year high

#360

Post by jusssi » Mon, Jun 26, 2023, 4:52 PM UTC

sidewndr46 wrote: post #276

apexalpha wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Once a car is light and small(ish) the good MPG will follow. My 1988 Volvo 240 got 30mpg on a recent road trip and that's with it needing a tune up. Doesn't this work both ways? If you focus on MPG then lighter, smaller variants of the same model will win out over bigger, heavier ones.

What does weight matter on a road trip? Unless you are exclusively driving at 30 mph uphill I don't see it mattering much. Wind resistance is the dominant force. This is the same reason why most railroads put limitations on the maximum grade they have to climb. They are mainly working against wind resistance, not gravity.

Heavier vehicle puts more work into deforming the road. It must follow it also puts more energy into that.