Earlier quoted context omitted.
They generally don’t have brodozers
Australia had plenty, yet mysteriously has far fewer deaths.
A Hilux is hardly a lifted 1500.
The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs
291–300 of 816 posts
Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anything with a hood that's so high primarily because it's gender affirming care is paid for with the deaths and injuries of innocents. Regulate the shape of the front end of any vehicle, as I'm sure any honest regulator would.
It's quite sad, the old 1997 F-150 (the first year of the quite-ugly-but-practical "bubble" aesthetic) specifically advertised its low front hood as an intentional measure to improve visibility. And that thing had better visibility than nearly any modern car. It was incredibly despite still being a relatively large truck.
You can thank the CAFE standards for setting emission limits of small vehicles below what was technically possible, driving manufacturers to the larger sizes.
Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs
#294WA 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 vehic…
I agree, but in order to effect change in an arms race, you need a higher power that deletes the arms. Otherwise you just lose the arms race and die.
Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs
#295WA 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…
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, at least as far as operating the thing on public streets goes.
I don't think that's necessarily a problem that needs solved. I'm fine telling the person that bought a Sur-Ron, "too bad, off road only".
Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs
#296Earlier 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…
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.
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Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why non-Americans?
Because the effects are explicitly called out for US roads and not other locales. https://m.youtube.com/shorts/FDvTWy0LMt4
Not only does that not have anything to do with texting, but it has nothing to do with the roads. That's about giant vehicles hitting people above the waistline. If you hit someone with a tall-ass truck in Portugal, I'm pretty sure he's going to fall over just like he would in the USA.
Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs
#298WA 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…
> Meanwhile, everyone knows that these giant trucks and SUVs are killing people, but we do basically nothing.
Too much money is tied up to giant trucks and SUVs being the norm. These vehicles only came into widespread existence due to the infamous "SUV loophole" [1], accelerated by them being much more profitable for manufacturers as there was (and is) far less competition in the truck/SUV space from non-American manufacturers and, with that, less competitive pressure that tends to eat up margins.
[1] https://www.distilled.earth/p/the-loophole-that-made-cars-in...
Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs
#299I have long held that larger vehicles should have higher licensing requirements purely based on stats. We see it in the stats that large vehicles are disproportionately dangerous to other vehicles and people so licensing should catch up. We have motorcycle licenses, why don't we have SUV licenses? Similarly, the penalties and limits should be higher. BAC should be lower. Fines higher. Etc etc. You want to drive a big…
Licensing is mostly based vehicle operating characteristics. We already have large vehicle licenses like class B and A for heavy vehicles. Motorcycles have a separate license due to different operating concerns. If you're actually following the stats you will see that vehicle size only accounted for 10% of the increase. You would want to focus on the other 90% to make the biggest difference. And using that logic, you…
> 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 largest factor - the _unnecessarily_ large vehicles - that are _known_ to be killing them.
Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs
#300They also drink a lot more fuel and contributing for co2 emissions. Thank you Americans for destroying Earth