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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

#351

Post by NamTaf »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #124

>“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…

> I wonder if one day using a smart phone while driving will have the same stigma as a DUI (and similar punishment).

Thankfully, it is beginning to, in some places outside the US.

> You can be fined $1,251 and have 4 demerit points recorded against your traffic history for using a mobile phone illegally while driving. [1]

> 0.05 and over, but under 0.10

Disqualification: 1 to 9 months

Fine: $2,336 [2]

[1]: https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/safety/road-safety/mobile-p...

[2]: https://www.qld.gov.au/transport/safety/road-safety/drink-dr...

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#352

Post by cjs_ac »

piker wrote: post #334
cjs_ac wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those A pillars are MASSIVE liabilities in the UK where people just hop right out onto "zebra crossings" expecting the right-of-way to be yielded to them. Those pedestrians do have the right of way; you need to have another look at the Highway Code.

This is such a British response. Obviously that's what the law says, yes. But if they hop into someone's blind spot, it won't matter to their family much that they were in the right.

It will matter to you when you’re sentenced, though.

Speaking as a fellow immigrant, your attitude is what gives immigrants a bad name worldwide.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#353

Post by chrisnight »

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.

I think you’re suffering from a false dichotomy. The average car capacity is 1.1 people per car, and 90%+ of the time, a normal individual is not hauling more than a backpack. Just imagine how much less traffic would be on the road if the people who could just biked. They get 1 protected lane (out of 6), and you get 50% less traffic? Hell yeah, that’s be awesome, right?

In terms of economics, consider how terrible car parking can be. A bike rack can park 20+ people in the space of 1 car parking spot (1-4 people). Do you really think a business would be better off with 1/10th the number of customers who can actually enter their building at once?

Bikes and rail should exist as options, not requirements. And when done well, like in Amsterdam, people will like using them. And driving will be even better, because of so much less traffic.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#354

Post by Scoundreller »

mschuster91 wrote: post #301
KetoManx64 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Or: Gotta love regulation keeping our societies alive . The US averages 14.9/100k traffic fatalities, Europe 6.7 [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

Canada beats the euro average at 4.7 but similarly allows regular Joe’s to drive a moving truck and trailer a car behind it with a general license.

+ Canada’s rates are better on a per km basis (even beating the Dutch).

Annual/biannual safety inspections are only required in 3 of 10 provinces and those 3 are on the smaller side (PEI, NS and NB).

Motor vehicle infraction enforcement is… an afterthought for Canadian police (they don’t think/care that their salary/town depends on it). But admittedly, even lighter than I’ve experienced in Europe.

It’s gotta be some other factor behind excess US road fatalities.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#355

Post by gravatron »

ajuc wrote: post #305
tinfoilhatter wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What's more comfortable about SUV or a truck than a minivan or combi? How is a tall hood increasing your family comfort? It only increases your ego.

I spent significant time recently in both a new F150 and a Toyota Sienna, and it isn't even close in the comfort between them. F150 wins by a mile by the sheer amount of space you have in that thing for both passengers and cargo. Not to mention the ability to tow.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#356

Post by groundzeros2015 »

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_...

[flagged]

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#357

Post by smusamashah »

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…

I recall that an SUV killed a 7 year old and his parents were charged with manslaughter and jailed, not the driver. https://globalnews.ca/news/11214748/parents-charged-death-so...

As an outsider (from a fairly corrupt country), this reeks of corruption and that law favours rich.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#358

Post by nathan_compton »

jstanley wrote: post #226
epistasis wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Complete indifference. That's the same class of argument as telling people they shouldn't use Signal because criminals use Signal.

I think there is a difference here. Signal qua signal isn't dangerous. Its purely what one does with it that might constitute a criminal act. In particular, using signal is unlikely to cause problems accidentally.

Driving a giant truck for no good reason entails a certain risk because of both the inevitability of human error (on the part of the driver but also others) and basic physics.

Furthermore, one might argue that the right to private communication is more important than the marginal improvement in life that you get from driving a big car for no particular reason.

Like consider a person who wants to drive a car filled with TNT. By its very nature this is a danger to others regardless of the intent of the driver or other drivers. Society might be argued to have an interest in regulating such behavior. I think there is a good case to be made that unnecessarily large vehicles differ in degree only from the TNT case, but differ categorically from using signal.

I'm not making the case that the differences justify banning big cars, but there are differences between the two situations.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#359

Post by rayiner »

simplyluke wrote: post #256
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 prevale…

Thank you, I hadn't even considered that smartphone use may differ between drivers in developed countries.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#360

Post by Aurornis »

bootlooped wrote: post #295
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…

I think it does ban them, effectively. There is what some people say is a gray zone (I don't actually think it's that gray) where a device is too fast or powerful to be a legal e-bike, but also doesn't meet the requirements to be a road legal motorcycle. Will Progressive give me motorcycle insurance on my DIY e-bike without a VIN? Will the DVM register it? I don't think so. In most states there is no path to legality…

> I don't think so. In most states there is no path to legality, at least as far as operating the thing on public streets goes.

Not true. It's common to convert dirt bikes into street legal vehicles with conversion kits that add the required pieces. Depending on the state, that means turn signals, a mirror, headlight, and tail light.

I think it's completely reasonable if we tell people that their Sur-Ron is for private property use only until they add the same equipment we require every other street legal vehicle to have. I also think it's reasonable if we tell them their electric motorcycle doesn't belong on the bike path.

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