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The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

nytimes.com

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Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#251

Post by ErroneousBosh »

echelon wrote: post #200
mitthrowaway2 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they are, and they do.

The bike meme is unrealistic, and you're dismissing all of my arguments. You're ripping up infrastructure for yuppie pickleball. How do you transmit tons of material on bikes? How do people move in the rain or when they're on their period? How do they move multiple small children or being home furniture? What do old and sick people do? Every lane taken away is centuries of economic activity destroyed.

> How do you transmit tons of material on bikes?

How do you transmit tons of materials with these crappy oversize pickup trucks? Their towing and payload capacity is pathetic.

Why does someone who is not literally a builder or joiner need to drive something as big as a full-size Ford Transit to take their child to school?

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#252

Post by hydrolox »

echelon wrote: post #186
__float wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Commuter rail has 1/200th the economic impact of interstate highways. Ok, and what fraction of investment has it gotten? We've underfunded rail/bike infrastructure for decades, of course money is going to flow on the cheapest route. Roads are cheap because we've subsidized the shit out of them.

Bikes are not going to deliver your packages and food and medical services. They're not going to take you on vacation, haul your gear, or provide shelter. There's a meme that bikes will solve everything and that cars suck, but it's dismissive of the orders of magnitude more value that road infra can and will always provide.

that literally happens in NYC right now

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#253

Post by baron816 »

ggreer wrote: post #166
TulliusCicero wrote: post #59

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…

The law doesn't ban them. It classifies fast e-bikes as motorcycles (which require registration, insurance, and a motorcycle endorsement).[1] This seems reasonable to me. The previous laws for e-bikes were based on outdated assumptions about battery & motor technology. I do think it would make more sense to simplify (and future-proof) the law to just say, "If it can go >30mph on level ground and has a motor, it's a m…

Well, probably the right thing to do for large trucks and suvs is to reclassify them so that you need a commercial license to drive them.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#254

Post by Tangurena2 »

everdrive wrote: post #83

People spend a lot of time on Trucks, but I don't see why SUVs get a pass. Every single car is an SUV now. They're higher up, heavier, and have a higher beltline all so that drivers can "feel safer."

The fuel economy figure that a vehicle needs to achieve used to be a set figure. Lobbyists got that changed so that now vehicle fuel economy is a function based on the width and length of the vehicle. And that's why the roads are full of fatmobiles.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#255

Post by verytrivial »

cogman10 wrote: post #242
ggreer wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law doesn't ban them. It classifies fast e-bikes as motorcycles (which require registration, insurance, and a motorcycle endorsement).[1] This seems reasonable to me. The previous laws for e-bikes were based on outdated assumptions about battery & motor technology. I do think it would make more sense to simplify (and future-proof) the law to just say, "If it can go >30mph on level ground and has a motor, it's a m…

Those sorts of codes do exist already. The problem is that bike manufacturers will put on a "go fast" switch with a "Don't flip this or you'll be breaking the law" note in the manual. Of course, a lot of people flip that switch because 20mph can feel pretty slow.

The Dutch seem to just do the sensible thing and have mobile e-bike dynos. If they suspect the bike is not properly regulated, they'll test it and keep it if it fails.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#256

Post by simplyluke »

rayiner wrote: post #149

Data shows that introduction of iPhones in 2007 is a better explanation for the increase in pedestrian deaths than heavier trucks and SUVs: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1ubbfrv/oc... (All the credit for this analysis goes to the reddit user, I’m just summarizing.) Trucks and SUVs have been getting heavier consistently since 1980 while pedestrian deaths consistently decreased from 1980 to 2009. Tr…

The times article hand-waves away distracted driving by saying that other countries haven't seen a similarly large increase. The problem with that is that vehicle sizes in all other countries have also been increasing, and other countries like Canada and Australia have seen almost identical market shares of those large vehicles without the surge in pedestrian fatalities.

The large factors are phone use (more prevalent among american drivers and there's data to show this), and homelessness - the homeless are dramatically overrepresented in US pedestrian deaths and the population has increased dramatically in the US over the past decade. Even more so though it appears to be attitudes, Americans are twice as likely as Europeans or Canadians to say using a phone while driving is acceptable. Though no single factor is a smoking gun, vehicle size is one of the least convincing. Getting hit by a 4000lb car or an 8000lb truck matters much less than how fast the vehicle's going (let's all remember our high school physics class).

This blog post is the best deep dive I've seen on the data: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/more-on-us-pedestrian...

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#257

Post by drtz »

EA-3167 wrote: post #182
hackingonempty wrote: post #64

In the USA, an order of magnitude more people on foot are killed each year by people driving cars and trucks than are killed in mass shootings. [0][1] It is a massive problem that receives a disproportionate amount of attention. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/pedestrian-bike-safety/about/pedestrian-... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_...

This is often brought out as though it should engender gasps, but a moment of thought punctures the whole prospect. We need cars and trucks for a variety of purposes, and while I agree that most people don't need a pickup or a Unimog, there are many people and businesses who do. The ability to rapidly travel is a centerpiece of modern life, and has been for quite some time. Mass shootings by contrast are not economic…

I think you're take is a bit off for multiple reasons.

First, people need transportation, not cars. For the vast majority of people, if you truly need a car, it's because your infrastructure was built in a way that doesn't provide any other modes of transportation.

Second, mass shootings aren't the intended effect of guns in the same way pedestrian fatalities aren't the intended effect of cars. Both cars and guns are providing some perceived value (personal transportation freedom and self-defense/safeguard against tyranny/national defense) with a significant number of deaths as a tradeoff.

Third, implying someone with a BAC over the legal limit for DRIVING is somehow responsible for getting killed while WALKING instead of driving is comical and darkly ironic considering drunk driving accounts for almost a third of traffic deaths in the US [1].

1. https://www.cdc.gov/impaired-driving/facts/index.html#:~:tex...

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#258

Post by cogman10 »

dualvariable wrote: post #240
rayiner wrote: post #149

Data shows that introduction of iPhones in 2007 is a better explanation for the increase in pedestrian deaths than heavier trucks and SUVs: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1ubbfrv/oc... (All the credit for this analysis goes to the reddit user, I’m just summarizing.) Trucks and SUVs have been getting heavier consistently since 1980 while pedestrian deaths consistently decreased from 1980 to 2009. Tr…

Weight of SUVs/Trucks isn't really the right metric to use though. The proportion of them which have a grill height which impairs visibility of the average height pedestrian would be a "better" metric, except it isn't as easy to cleanly define that. With me driving in my 2000s Ranger, I can at least see adults walking in front of it just fine, even though it is bigger than a 1980 Toyota pickup.

It's any easy to measure metric, the article even shows it.

What we need is a "distance from the front of the car a 4' person is visible." metric. Car manufactures should be penalized for poor visibility.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#259

Post by imglorp »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #59

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…

Maybe not so much "ban" giant vehicles as stop subsidizing, rewarding, and encouraging them.

There's safety and emissions loopholes that brought this on: https://www.wired.com/story/the-us-wants-to-close-the-suv-lo...

We also subsidize fossil fuels to some $900B/yr, not counting foreign wars for oil, climate damage, health impacts etc. Fuel should be MUCH more expensive, around $15/gal. If priced right, the market would weed out these giant vehicles for personal/entertainment use. https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/in-gasolinegate-the-true-...

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#260

Post by vondur »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #142
epistasis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hangi…

>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. It's kind of a hilarious yardstick for societal decline if you think about it. 70yr ago the boomers were drunk crashing sports cars so frequently that laws got passed. Now late teenage…

In my area kids are doing street takeovers and assaulting people in cars and pedestrians. Laws have been passed to deal with it but there is very little on the enforcement side. Plus kids are riding around in effectively what are electric motorcycles that can hit highway speeds which would normally require licensing and registration like any other motor vehicle. Recently I know of a 15 year old who crashed on one of these bikes and died. Having said that, 15 year old me would have absolutely loved having one of these kick ass ebikes.
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