311–320 of 358 posts
>The “light truck” loophole for pickups and SUVs that allow them to pollute more than other cars. https://www.vice.com/en/article/3abk7b/bidens-new-fuel-econo...
They should in any sane world go the other way - have a benefits for small safer cars and a bunch of tax and regulation on the monster ones.
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Just require a class A/B license to drive anything above...I don't know, 4000lbs? Exclude batteries from the weight if that becomes a problem for electric cars.
Why exclude ecars? They are just as dangerous.
There are definitely polls that show women find men in trucks more attractive in the US than, say, vans. If you want to signal wealth and refinement get a luxury vehicle. If you want to signal utility and masculinity get a truck.
honestly, I believe it. I would blame the truck ads that have brainwashed Americans into thinking that driving a truck makes you more masculine or tough.
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> 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…
> automatic dimming features don't work well up here That's disappointing to hear, but a counterpoint: the first car I ever drove that had auto-dimming was a Ford Escape rental in Utah. I drove from SLC to Moab and back, plenty of night driving in mountains, and it performed far beyond my expectations. I really never had to adjust the lights manually. Which is to say, probably more to do with the specific implementat…
(Truthfully, I'm just guessing that the drivers are relying on auto-dimming tech since it seems way too consistent to "just" be "oh, haha, I forgot." But, the latter is certainly possible given your sibling comment—perhaps more and more people genuinely don't care about other drivers.)
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> 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…
Judging by the increasingly anti-social driving habits I'm seeing during the day time, this possibility definitely stands out (the worst being a tendency for people to slow down traffic 10-15 MPH under the posted speed only to speed up to 10-15 MPH over when someone attempts to pass them).
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It's not just because of this fact. It's also because trucks and SUVs are exempted from fuel efficiency standards that apply to sedans. So out sedans go, Ford doesn't even bother with them at all anymore. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/04/07/trucks-ou...
That is another reason. But the smallest trucks were put in the car efficiency standards. There used to be a Ford F100. Full size truck but lighter load capacity. RIP. Tax gas if you want people to burn less of it.
I don't think that's exactly true. It's just that fuel standards for light trucks are now defined in terms of the footprint of the vehicle -- the smaller the truck, the higher the fuel standard. Which is, of course, exactly what the automakers wanted: They make more money selling bigger trucks.
I found the light truck CAFE standards online. Notice how simple they were from 2001-2010, and how ridiculous they are since the 2008 change: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-49/subtitle-B/chapter-V/p...
> Tax gas if you want people to burn less of it.
Change CAFE first, then tax. There's only so much people can do to day-to-day to change their fuel consumption. It really comes down to 1) Where they live 2) Where they work and 3) What they drive. If we're going to raise taxes, we have to start by turning the ship around as far as the available vehicles. Right now the streets are filled with brodozers.
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Cars in the 80s and 90s definitely had more of a "greenhouse" feel to them, with mostly transparent glass and small framing. Due to a mixture of standards, this has changed. The roof cap and pillars have thickened and curved for roll-over protection, and front pillars are also thicker to hold air bags that didn't exist in those older cars. The windows sills are higher up relative to the driver, to improve side-impact…
> Due to a mixture of standards, this has changed. The roof cap and pillars have thickened and curved for roll-over protection, and front pillars are also thicker to hold air bags that didn't exist in those older cars. The windows sills are higher up relative to the driver, to improve side-impact protection. I've heard this argument before, but I'm simply not buying it. Cars like the Honda Civic or Volkswagen Golf ha…
The Hondas (and Toyotas) of the 80s had much thinner A-pillars than they do now. Barely enough to hold the weather gasket for the windshield and act as a frame for the front door.
I was in an early 80s Toyota Hi-Lux during a relatively gentle rollover and watched the roof and windshield cave in towards me. I think I was saved by the fiberglass camper shell on the bed, so it only collapsed until the weight of the car was transferred to the hood and the shell. The cab roof got smashed into a linear interpolation of those high points...
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This is one of the reasons I daily drive a 1990 BMW 325i—the visibility is just unparalleled.
Even with the increase visibility, I'm sure you'd be much safer in a 2020 BMW 3-series. Heck even a 2010.
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God, this is pretty much my mother. She couldn’t care any less about “ruggedness” or that “tough guy” image. Her only argument ever is “safety.” I am not in it to change her mind. But whenever she brings this topic up and I show her the actual safety ratings for different vehicles, it’s almost as if her brain shuts down. She would say something along the lines “uh oh idk, maybe, who knows, it doesn’t feel as safe,” a…
> whenever she brings this topic up and I show her the actual safety ratings for different vehicles, it’s almost as if her brain shuts down The NHTSA safety ratings come with the following notation: "Note: A vehicle’s rating, or Overall Vehicle Score, can be compared with other vehicles of similar size and weight" She may be, whether knowingly or not, interpreting the data offered more in-line with the guidance provi…
I wouldn’t want it to be replacing the per-category one, as that one is way more precise and accurate. But there should be a way to roughly compare the safety of two different cars of different classes.
Given the NHTSA rating notation you posted mentioning normalization by size and weight, I wonder if there is a rough function of weight and size that would allow for “denormalizing” scores into raw approximates.
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I got to ride as passenger in someone's new Camaro at about that time, and I fully agree: the visibility was absolutely horrendous. I couldn't believe it. How is such a vehicle legal to drive? Does the US not have any kind of auto regulations governing visibility at all?
>Does the US not have any kind of auto regulations governing visibility at all? Apparently not, considering the topic of TFA
For a specific example, I am pretty sure that backup cameras have been mandatory on all new cars since at least 2018.