Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 358 posts

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#281

Post by 48864w6ui »

Swizec wrote: post #9
082349872349872 wrote: post #2

Interestingly, agricultural tractors have evolved to have better sightlines. Could that be because for these machines, the pedestrian deaths are usually members of the tractor drivers' family? https://www.profi.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2020/06/2... vs https://bigiron.blob.core.windows.net/public/items/72b53c753...

> Could that be because for these machines, the pedestrian deaths are usually members of the tractor drivers' family I have a different guess after seeing tractors in use as a kid: Driving tractors is a high precision affair. You're moving around expensive equipment that you don't want to bump. You're plowing next to all sorts of hazards you don't want to fall into. You have to park within an inch of attachments befo…

It looks like sloped noses are about a decade old and are sold as hi vis for work. Given the obvious advantages, something must have changed for them to be so new? Now that ag tractors have slope noses, might Chelsea tractors eventually copy the look?

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#282

Post by soco »

ryandrake wrote: post #242
Zancarius wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Great, now everyone in a sedan is being blinded by all sorts of SUVs and trucks. Utter failure. I drive a truck and live in a mountainous area. Trust me, it's not just sedans. Nearly everyone drives around with their brights on and it seems they no longer bother to turn them down when approaching traffic (automatic dimming features don't work well up here). Consequently, night time driving is dangerous. I don't kno…

I rode with a work acquaintance at night once, and noticed he kept his high beams on the whole time, despite oncoming traffic. I eventually said something, like shouldn't you dim your lights when there's someone oncoming? He looked at me like I had antlers growing out of my forehead. "Duh... The high beams are brighter and let me see better." That's the bottom line: Not even a thought about other drivers. And these p…

My 10 years old VW turns off the high beams when it detects incoming traffic, or in general stronger ambient lights (like, street lighting in a locality). But in the US there are no such requirements, I assume.

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#283

Post by CalRobert »

crote wrote: post #262
CalRobert wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not. The Netherlands is full of Dodge Rams.

If by "full" you mean "might encounter a single one on your commute", then yes.

There's three between my house and my daughters' school a 5 minute bike ride away in Hilversum. All with V plates, naturally.

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#285

Post by danaris »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #165
danaris wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're going to try to "punish" SUV drivers for driving those vehicles, then I think we need to both recognize and do some things: 1) We need to recognize that there's a wide variety of vehicles in the SUV category. Many of them have replaced (not supplemented, replaced , because they sell better and car companies are hyperoptimizing their profits like everyone else) old standards like station wagons and minivans i…

Suv style vehicles are actually a lot more dangerous in the snow. Its so much more mass you are dealing with and damage when you lose grip entirely on ice under gravity power alone. On video clips of this sedans and such might kind of bump against a parked car and come to a stop while the big Suburban goes on to total a parked car with all the kinetic energy. If you want a snow tank, get a car that weighs like ~2500l…

Again: How does this compare to an EV, which are known to be the heaviest vehicles per unit of volume on the road today?

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#286

Post by danaris »

jjav wrote: post #235
danaris wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're going to try to "punish" SUV drivers for driving those vehicles, then I think we need to both recognize and do some things: 1) We need to recognize that there's a wide variety of vehicles in the SUV category. Many of them have replaced (not supplemented, replaced , because they sell better and car companies are hyperoptimizing their profits like everyone else) old standards like station wagons and minivans i…

> We need to recognize that, at least for some SUVs, there are genuine, non-overcompensating use cases. For the things I think of as SUVs, I don't think there is any legitimate use case to be honest. Big SUVs often have less interior room than a sedan or station wagon so interior room is not a use case. They have way less cargo capacity than a pickup so that's not a use case either. They fit less people than a van, s…

> You say Subaru Outback though. I would have never called that a SUV. It's a wagon.

Well, that makes your definition of an SUV pretty useless for trying to actually change policy or culture, then.

We have to work with the definitions of things that actually exist in the world, not the ones we make up in our heads.

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#287

Post by danaris »

crote wrote: post #256
danaris wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're going to try to "punish" SUV drivers for driving those vehicles, then I think we need to both recognize and do some things: 1) We need to recognize that there's a wide variety of vehicles in the SUV category. Many of them have replaced (not supplemented, replaced , because they sell better and car companies are hyperoptimizing their profits like everyone else) old standards like station wagons and minivans i…

> Like driving on snowy, icy winter roads in the northern US and all of Canada. No. Plenty of people get by with normal-sized cars under similar conditions in countries like Sweden, Norway, and Finland. Not to mention that SUVs are actually worse in such environments due to their almost-universal terrible performance in the Moose Test.

Did you miss the part where I pointed out that excessive size is not an inherent property of SUVs?

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#288

Post by danaris »

FooBarBizBazz wrote: post #195
danaris wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're going to try to "punish" SUV drivers for driving those vehicles, then I think we need to both recognize and do some things: 1) We need to recognize that there's a wide variety of vehicles in the SUV category. Many of them have replaced (not supplemented, replaced , because they sell better and car companies are hyperoptimizing their profits like everyone else) old standards like station wagons and minivans i…

> Full disclosure: I drive a Subaru Outback. [...T]he Outback's [gas mileage] is actually shockingly good for an SUV). Funny, I call the Outback an AWD station wagon, not an SUV at all. I've got no problem with that; I'd be much happier if people bought those. Indeed, the very existence of Subarus seems to make most SUVs unnecessary. The only SUV Subaru makes (that I am aware of) is the Forester (and while that's a l…

> Funny, I call the Outback an AWD station wagon, not an SUV at all.

Then you're going to need to come up with some better way of defining what a Bad Vehicle is if you want to change policy/culture, because your definition of an SUV doesn't match with reality.

When you say something like "we need to make SUV drivers feel ridiculous and humiliated", but you're using a definition of "SUV" that you made up in your head, you're not communicating anything useful or productive to the world at large.

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#289

Post by danaris »

twoWhlsGud wrote: post #216
danaris wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're going to try to "punish" SUV drivers for driving those vehicles, then I think we need to both recognize and do some things: 1) We need to recognize that there's a wide variety of vehicles in the SUV category. Many of them have replaced (not supplemented, replaced , because they sell better and car companies are hyperoptimizing their profits like everyone else) old standards like station wagons and minivans i…

Decent points, but it's good to remember that all cars have AWS (all wheel stop) - if you're not careful have AWD can make it easier to miss the transition to where AWS is no longer sufficient. In the NW the main attraction of AWD is not getting stuck in ski area parking lots and not having to put on chains when the roads prematurely force chaining up "except for AWD" because the state patrol knows almost no one has…

> All of that said, the more threatening the roads look to potential bikers and walkers the fewer we'll get of them.

And while I agree that that's a big problem in some places....it's really a complete non-issue in most of the places I'm driving. No one's riding bikes or walking along US Route 20 in central NYS—not where there's 20 miles between small towns and a single hill climbs about 200 feet fairly steeply.

Re: Higher vehicle hoods significantly increase pedestrian deaths, study finds

#290

Post by filoleg »

axpy wrote: post #280
filoleg wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of those car manufacturers just don’t care, and it isn’t exclusive to large cars either (though the damage they can do is obviously much higher, making them more dangerous to pedestrians). I like sports cars, so I tried test driving a Camaro about 5 years ago. You would think that visibility on a rather small and fast 2-seater would be at least better than on an average SUV. It was singularly the worst car I’ve…

A Camaro is not a small 2 seater by any means, it’s a rather big muscle car. If you want to experience what a small 2 seater feels like, try a Miata or a Cayman. Those 2 have outstanding visibility. Many sports car have bad visibility due to the mid engine blocking the rearview.

> Camaro is not a small 2 seater by any means, it’s a rather big muscle car

It is small, in the context of a conversation about SUVs and pickup trucks. Yes, I am aware that it is not “small” in the context of 2 seaters, where you can go for miatas/brzs/911s/etc.

> Many sports car have bad visibility due to the mid engine blocking the rearview.

Sure, and that I can forgive. What I can’t forgive is the frontview having that same awful tank-slit visibility, which I’ve only encountered on a Camaro so far.

Post reply on HN