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The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

nytimes.com

261–270 of 816 posts

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#261

>“Our estimate is that about 200 to 400 pedestrians a year would not have died if vehicles had remained approximately the same size over the past quarter-century,” the report continued. “That represents about 10 percent of the recent increase in pedestrian deaths.” Am I crazy? The article itself points out that only 10% of the increase would have been 'saved' if cars had remained the same size. This goes directly aga…

And it doesn't quantify how many other lives have been saved specifically because the accidents involved bigger, sturdier, safer cars/trucks/SUVs. That has to be a significant statistic.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#262
The problem is that other countries have seen nearly identical trends in vehicle market share trending towards larger vehicles and have seen sustained declines in pedestrian fatalities. John Burn-Murdoch went deep on this in the FT a couple of years ago (archive link at bottom).

> Most of the explanations commonly put forward for why US roads remain so deadly focus on broad structural factors such as vehicle size or time spent on the road, but a review of the evidence suggests this may be mistaken. Last year’s improvement is a case in point. Two reasons often cited as key causes of poor US performance both worsened: the total number of miles driven by Americans increased, and US cars continued to grow larger. Yet fatal collisions still declined.

> Adding to the evidence that this is not a dominant factor, car sizes in Canada, Australia and New Zealand have traced similar paths to the US without resulting in a spike in fatalities.

> Another theory is that the rise of homelessness in the US may be pushing pedestrian deaths higher. A recent study found that there had indeed been a marked rise in traffic-related deaths among the homeless, but this, too, can only explain a small portion of the overall rise.

> Instead, an underrated factor seems to be not American cars but American drivers [...] The determining factor seems to be different attitudes to safety, with Americans twice as likely as Canadians or Europeans to say they find it acceptable to use a phone while driving.

https://archive.is/Lggyg#30%

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My anecdote only but the contraptions being sold as “e-bikes” are actually motorcycles. Like all things a few bad apples ruin it for everyone but in what I have seen it’s more than just a few bad apples. From maintained mountain bike trails, to riding at speed on walking paths. They are far more than just some kids being kids. It is ultimately a lack of parenting these days but I don’t believe the new laws coming int…

Your description is not accurate for my state, California, there are clear tiers of ebikes with regulations on when and where they can go, with very clear explanation at purchase, and no weird marketing like you're talking about. I've tried to go buy them, I have experienced the lectures! Perhaps we can let the few bad apples killing lots of people with their massive hood height lead to better regulation of such hood…

In NJ there was a string of teen ebike deaths, all of which were cars hitting teens riding on the side of the road.

The solution the state came up with was regulating the living hell out of ebikes.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#264

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…

[dead]

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#267

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.

Have you ever been to China? They haul huge amounts of stuff with bicycle trailers.

But yeah, you got me. It's impossible to ride a bike in the rain, or on your period. Checkmate, I surrender.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, it's not exactly the same situation, but it does ban them for the riders (the teens) who were previously on them. You could make it more analogous by saying that we could enforce stricter regulations on big SUVs and trucks in terms of, say, driver licensing, and you'd still have a huge outcry if we tried that.

It blew my mind the first time I rented a 35' long 26,000 GVWR diesel truck and drove it right onto the interstate. What you can accomplish on a simple US driving license is something special you can't get almost anywhere else in the world unless you count places where bribes work. The EU cuts you off at like 8,000 lbs.

Gotta love regulation stifling the living daylights our of your society.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#269
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the issue is distracted drivers, I don’t see how heavier trucks is still not the issue. With lighter vehicles you would likely have a higher chance of surviving.

They can both be factors, just one is much more influential than the other. Alcohol is involved in about half of all pedestrian deaths. So it seems that's the issue, but people would rather talk about vehicle size.

Drunk driving is already criminalized, generally socially unacceptable, and has received lots of attention over the decades.

Vehicle size is a relevant factor in vehicle-pedestrian collisions regardless of the cause of the collision.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#270

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…

When vehicles were starting to get noticeably bigger about 20 years ago, I asked some family members why they were buying vehicles they had to climb up into.

"On the highway, I'd rather kill someone than be killed in a wreck."

They would not recognize that while that might work for a while, it wasn't going to lead anywhere good for our society. A generation of people thinking like that has filled our roads with vehicles that protect their occupants while making it more dangerous for everyone else.

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