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The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

nytimes.com

91–100 of 816 posts

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#91
post #52

At the same time avoidance systems have become much better on those large new cars… so would it have even worse had collision avoidance not come into being? Also interesting that often people tend to imagine F-150s, Silverados ,etc., but if you see what people drive they are large Bentzs, Toyotas and of course Suburbans and F-150s. But everyone is building them not just American manufacturers.

Avoidance systems aren't that much better, some just make an angry beep before plowing into something. Also you can't fix the fact that a heavier car is going to take longer to stop and will impart more force even at lower speeds.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#92
post #55

While their conclusion is probably correct, I would have liked to seen the number of fatalities normalized by population, miles driven, number of pedestrian increase, speed limit change etc

This study didn’t nearly enough to disambiguate for widespread phone use while driving, which IMO is the biggest factor. Self driving AI is the answer.

Would've been trivial to just run the same calculations on 1990s numbers when SUVs first became popular but long before smartphones.

I think it speaks volumes that they didn't.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#93
post #51

there’s another thing that started to get quite popular in the late 2000s… smartphones

Other countries have smartphones too.

Other countries take it way more seriously. The US has way more deaths per capita than Australia (just one example) simply due to lack of enforcement of speeding, drunk driving, smart phone use.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#95

What also happened around 2009?... Smartphones taking off in a big way. Distracted pedestrians must be a significant factor too. Especially if they've got noise-cancelling Airpods or similar in their ears while looking at their phone.

if that was true, we'd see the same pedestrian mortality rise everywhere, which we don't.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#96

WA state recently passed a law about e-bikes/e-motorcycles to deal with the issue of younger teens on these kinda moped-style e-bikes going very fast around town (and often riding quite recklessly). The law is reasonable, but it strikes me what a double standard there is for biking vs driving. For biking, there's a danger that's noticed, and we quickly pass a law that straight up bans that type of bike for those ride…

I don't know the particulars, but if what's going on in WA is like what's going on in my California town, I don't think it's reasonable.

I see teens going around on ebikes, and people freak out over them in ways that seem completely inappropriate to the kids scooting around. I think it's mostly a reaction to seeing young people being young people, as far as I can tell.

Same thing happens on NextDoor, a few kids hanging out and joking around makes people think there's a gang problem, I've seen it happen in my own neighborhood and it's ridiculous.

It is true that violent death and maiming from SUVs and large trucks is a crisis, that society generally ignores. When I once called these hoods "gender affirming" a reply chastised me for being inflammatory and claiming that stating the plain obvious would get in the way of convincing others, but I think it's exactly the opposite: unless we start talking about the truth of these things nothing will happen.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#97

WA state recently passed a law about e-bikes/e-motorcycles to deal with the issue of younger teens on these kinda moped-style e-bikes going very fast around town (and often riding quite recklessly). The law is reasonable, but it strikes me what a double standard there is for biking vs driving. For biking, there's a danger that's noticed, and we quickly pass a law that straight up bans that type of bike for those ride…

Cars are a major domestic industry for production, sales, and service. E-mopeds aren’t. That’s all.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#98

WA state recently passed a law about e-bikes/e-motorcycles to deal with the issue of younger teens on these kinda moped-style e-bikes going very fast around town (and often riding quite recklessly). The law is reasonable, but it strikes me what a double standard there is for biking vs driving. For biking, there's a danger that's noticed, and we quickly pass a law that straight up bans that type of bike for those ride…

People under 16 probably shouldn't be driving vehicles very fast period. That doesn't feel like a double standard since we've already banned them from driving cars.

It seems orthogonal to SUVs.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#99

WA state recently passed a law about e-bikes/e-motorcycles to deal with the issue of younger teens on these kinda moped-style e-bikes going very fast around town (and often riding quite recklessly). The law is reasonable, but it strikes me what a double standard there is for biking vs driving. For biking, there's a danger that's noticed, and we quickly pass a law that straight up bans that type of bike for those ride…

How would you react if told you could no longer drive your primary mode of transportation?

I agree. We should legalize drunk driving so that no one can be denied their god-given right to drive a car.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#100

WA state recently passed a law about e-bikes/e-motorcycles to deal with the issue of younger teens on these kinda moped-style e-bikes going very fast around town (and often riding quite recklessly). The law is reasonable, but it strikes me what a double standard there is for biking vs driving. For biking, there's a danger that's noticed, and we quickly pass a law that straight up bans that type of bike for those ride…

How would you react if told you could no longer drive your primary mode of transportation?

How would you react if told that your primary mode of transportation is causing a big increase in deaths? Isn't that a more relevant question?
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