191–200 of 429 posts
I think the calculation for the buyer goes something like this: 1) Big cars are safer for their occupants 2) Nothing else matters more than that
Yep also bigger cars can do slightly more.
When I was younger and regularly getting around on a bike, I used to view people in large, high vehicles with contempt. I don't anymore. I see them as victims of an industry that lacks moral responsibility.
A quote from a GMC designer around the time this ridiculous SUV mania was taking hold:
"I remember wanting it to feel very locomotive - like a massive fist moving through the air"
It might not be obvious to Americans, but I find it very telling that American made vehicles are almost always the most 'aggressive', and often marketed that way. Why is that?
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I feel like this means taxes should be imposed on cars proportionally to the fourth power of axle load too.
Car makers would adjust but road freight would fight this tooth and nail
but maybe this would just incentivise the sort of person that buys an F150 to drive to the shops to simply to upgrade to a big rig (for the tax saving?!)
Key Ideas: Heavier vehicles are safer for their occupants but more dangerous for others: The weight of a vehicle is a critical factor in car crashes, with heavier vehicles causing more fatalities in other cars, pedestrians, and cyclists. The heaviest vehicles kill more people than they save: Analysis of crash data shows that for every life saved by the heaviest 1% of SUVs and trucks, more than a dozen lives are lost…
In the US.
In Europe pedestrian crash safety is a BIG deal.
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And this kind of thinking is how we end up with a society shown in the move Idiocracy. While you and your loved ones might survive at the cost of other more considerate people BUT the human race will become slightly dumber.
I can’t really understand where you’re coming from. Self preservation is at the absolute core of us all. You can’t honestly expect the average human to put the lives of unknown strangers before the lives of their own, as you say, loved ones.
otherwise in 50 years everyone will be driving around an ex-army abrams
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Some of us actively hate big cars for daily use and are angered at the "SUV" (usually neither sport nor utility) unithink forced on us, and are frustrated how hard it is to find anything different. I want basically an electric Miata for around town, can't get one. I also want an actual utility vehicle with a long, solid, roof rack to haul a canoe or sheet of plywood. SUV roof racks are usually token, if at all. A pla…
Your comment shows how bad car culture is. You think you're the enlightened one, but you want an electric sports car for getting "around town"? People should be walking or cycling around town. Cars are actively harmful to towns. Cars have led to generations of people who don't realise they are capable of walking further than a few steps between car and building. A kind of learned helplessness. When you step outside o…
But the US has very few cities proper (mostly those which grew big before that advent of the car), and even those have uneven density and thus efficiency of walking or taking a bus.
A ton of what the US taste call cities is sprawling low-density almost-suburbia surrounding a few high-density "downtown" areas. See Houston, TX for an impressive example. Biking in such places is possible but tiring, walking is mostly pointless unless you visit your neighbor or a park, and running a subway is uneconomical.
Hence, they resort to cars.
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Any politician saying we should limit motor vehicle size would committing career suicide. That would be a slam dunk wedge issue for Republicans.
Could be the opposite. Part of the problem is that carmakers refuse to sell small cars. If you don’t believe me try to buy a small car at a car dealership in America. Consumers are angry about rising costs, particularly for automobiles, and having a choice to buy an affordable vehicle could be surprisingly popular. For instance I think electric vehicle adoption is stalled because there aren’t many people who can affo…
>Consumers are angry about rising costs, particularly for automobiles, and having a choice to buy an affordable vehicle could be surprisingly popular.
Consumers may claim they care about rising costs, but the fact that more expensive SUVs are outselling sedans makes me think it's the consumers who are refusing to buy small cars, rather than carmakers refusing to sell them.
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Your comment shows how bad car culture is. You think you're the enlightened one, but you want an electric sports car for getting "around town"? People should be walking or cycling around town. Cars are actively harmful to towns. Cars have led to generations of people who don't realise they are capable of walking further than a few steps between car and building. A kind of learned helplessness. When you step outside o…
> People should be walking or cycling around town. This. Is a very out of touch opinion. I could write 20 paragraphs disagreeing, but I doubt it is worth my time to write or anyone else’s to read. Not every person is able-bodied enough to walk and bike. Also, people happen to need to get from A to B when it is cold, dark, raining, extremely hot, snowing, or just some kind of shitty outside. People need to drive to a…
This is true, but it also true that not every person is able to drive a car. In fact the inability to drive is way more common than the inability to walk.