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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

#731

Post by lonelyasacloud »

giantg2 wrote: post #639
lonelyasacloud wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you're actually following the stats you will see that vehicle size only accounted for 10% of the increase. It's a paper that will make money automobile advertising. Implicitly if there were any other single larger cause for the deaths then the article would be about that. The sensible thing to do would be to carry on investigating the 90%, but in the meantime get on with saving the 200 to 400 people by removing…

"Implicitly if there were any other single larger cause for the deaths then the article would be about that." Then show me explicitly what the breakdown is. "the _unnecessarily_ large vehicles" Define unnecessarily. Do I get to buy one because I'm tall, have a big family, haul stuff?

> Define unnecessarily. Do I get to buy one because I'm tall, have a big family, haul stuff?

Give or take inches around the waist we are the same size and shape. We have roughly the same mental faculties. Afaik we are no lesser than our parents and grandparents who all managed to do just fine without huge vehicles.

If a situation was fine before and changing something either does nothing or makes that situation worse e.g. kills 200 to 400 people, then that change is?

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#732

Post by coryrc »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #722
coryrc wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't hard to drive on the freeway. They are hard to drive without running over people in neighborhoods. The leading cause of death in children 0-14 is automobiles. https://www.kidsandcars.org/frontovers/media-resources

It seems you already got your wish. Almost every driver is, as you say, "properly insured" It is easy enough to avoid kids that death is is rare, and the insurance cost is quite low - even with astronomical insurance payouts for accidental child death.

Automobiles are literally the number one killer of children 0-14 in the USA.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#733

Post by pjc50 »

epistasis wrote: post #96
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 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…

Like a lot of these things, it's all fun and games until someone gets injured. This happened the other week in Edinburgh: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/woman-knock...

Previously, there had been a lot of complaints about intentional antisocial riding on pavements etc. Close passes as a form of harassment. If that's tolerated, it's a matter of time before someone gets hit.

As an extra punchline, while the injured woman was surrounded by police and medics, two other idiots on Voi rental bikes ran through the cordon and got arrested.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#734

Post by like_any_other »

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_...

Not that I object to the findings, but the Center for Disease Control getting involved in traffic safety is massive scope creep. Especially since we already have the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#735

Post by nkrisc »

giantg2 wrote: post #293
nkrisc wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Alcohol is also a factor on the pedestrian side, not just the driver side. This has not been addressed. It is still a relevant factor on both sides. Yes, vehicle size/design is another factor.

> Alcohol is also a factor on the pedestrian side

Absolutely true, but what are you proposing? I’d propose banning most vehicles from city centers where people congregate.

Vehicle size and weight will always be a relevant factor as long as people and vehicles exist in the same spaces.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#736

Post by mapkkk »

andrepd wrote: post #393
tinfoilhatter wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Dutch grandmas can transport 3 kids to school on a cargo bike but young parents in the US need a 4-ton lifted truck? Odd.

the way I see US infrastructure, I feel like they (like most of the world) will never be able to claw their way back out of car dependence.

Even the Dutch had to fight tooth and nail for it. I've lived in Germany for a while and there are cities here where even I would be snubbing taking kids to school with a bakfiets, because the biking infra is not good enough, or in other words the mingling I'd have to do with other traffic would be too out of my comfort zone.

Urban planning should prioritize walking and biking very first, and cars and other utilitarian-but-dangerous/harmful transport methods should be integrated in a way that's not engulfing the more human-scale side of things. But I think the costs (both monetary and in terms of "cognitive shift") are so high that I don't think I'll see this change in my lifetime. And that's before accounting for the power of corporate interest

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#737

Post by wahern »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #722
coryrc wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They aren't hard to drive on the freeway. They are hard to drive without running over people in neighborhoods. The leading cause of death in children 0-14 is automobiles. https://www.kidsandcars.org/frontovers/media-resources

It seems you already got your wish. Almost every driver is, as you say, "properly insured" It is easy enough to avoid kids that death is is rare, and the insurance cost is quite low - even with astronomical insurance payouts for accidental child death.

> astronomical insurance payouts for accidental child death.

There's no such thing. Standard automobile insurance policies cap injury liability in the low 5 figures. If you cause an accident and someone is seriously injured, there's a good chance you'll be personally liable for the majority of damages. Ditto property--you total someone's $100,000 Mercedes and you're likely going to be paying money out-of-pocket.

If you have any significant assets it's worthwhile to buy an umbrella policy.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#738

Post by hbs18 »

HDBaseT wrote: post #709
dd8601fn wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article says height of the hood and massive A pillars. People like big and boxy. Increased hood height kills people and creates an absurdly large blind area. Massive pillars add roll safety but create horrible blind spots in left hand turns.

Which is strange to me. I hate the big and boxy look. A sedan is the perfect shaped car in my opinion. Wagons are nice too.

A sedan shaped two door coupe is even better. The B pillars are behind you so you get better visibility.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#739

Post by ValentinPearce »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #681
briffle wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A commercial driver has a physical every year, severe restrictions on how they can drive, hours behind wheel, etc. But if you have 2 cataract surguries, oncoming dementia, and a body full of arthritis that can barely move, you can drive a 50' Class A Motorhome to your winter home in the South.

Sounds utterly ridiculous I agree but there's something to be said for 60+ years of muscle memory, otherwise olds rocketing motorhomes off of cliffs or augering into the side of the local walmart would feature more prominently in the local news. Quit picking on paw paw and keep the fight where it belongs: suburbanite pavement princesses must die.

There are also countries that reduce the time a license is valid starting at a certain age and that require a medical test for renewal at all ages. IIRC Spain does that.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#740

Post by Poacher5 »

bombcar wrote: post #664
zardo wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that does get to the point. Maybe differentkinds of vehicles need different kinds of qualification testing. Would you trust your 16yo that just passed their driver's test in a sedan to tow a boat through town with an F250?

Fun fact - in most states a 12 or 13 year old can operate many tens of thousands of pounds of agricultural equipment “incidentally over a highway” or similar - which can be multiple miles between farm plots. Me? I commute in a New Holland CR11.

Same's true in the UK, but honestly they're some of the best drivers out there 'cause they've been hustling in farm equipment since they were tall enough to reach the pedals. I've seen farmers get picked up from my old local by their kids in a tractor before when they were too drunk to drive home.
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