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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

#451

Post by PoignardAzur »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #385
simplyluke wrote: post #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…

I too am unconvinced bigger truck/vehicle means things are getting of control. It's terrible how the NYT article has no facts on overall road deaths, so here I state one for everyone: Occupant deaths have a clear falling trend . So while pedestrian deaths are climbing, the overall deaths are still trending downward, and I shouldn't have to defend that the overall count is more important than the pedestrian subset.

That can be very easily explained as "bigger cars are safer for their occupant and deadlier to the person getting hit by them".

I do think you need to defend your assertion, because the difference between a driver and a pedestrian is that the driver "knew the risks" while the risks were imposed on the pedestrian.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#452

Post by tinyplanets »

9cb14c1ec0 wrote: post #316
ElijahLynn wrote: post #250

I recently visited Portugal and it was so refreshing not to see huge near monster trucks on the road. Which have a very intimidating vibe to them. I was like oh look at people can actually function without big trucks, wow! What a surprise!

Very urban perspective. If you are a contractor or farmer in rural America, there is no way to survive without a good sized truck.

Plenty of oversized trucks and SUVs in urban areas. The majority of the population in the U.S. is considered urban, so why exactly is the "urban perspective" not legitimate?

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#453

Post by ghaff »

Aurornis wrote: post #415
epistasis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. I thought it was all fun at first, but they've since invaded the bike paths and parks near my house. It seems like more common they become, the more emboldened the riders are to drive…

I'm tempted to say nothing some baseball bats won't help. But the real problem is that you have bicycles increasingly morphing into things that look more like motorcycles and, if they can't be legally sold that way, someone will sell them or they can be modded.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#454

Post by ElijahLynn »

9cb14c1ec0 wrote: post #316
ElijahLynn wrote: post #250

I recently visited Portugal and it was so refreshing not to see huge near monster trucks on the road. Which have a very intimidating vibe to them. I was like oh look at people can actually function without big trucks, wow! What a surprise!

Very urban perspective. If you are a contractor or farmer in rural America, there is no way to survive without a good sized truck.

Well from my experience visiting Portugal, there's tons of farming there and they didn't have all these oversized trucks. I wonder how they do it...

It seems uniquely American to have these huge trucks and most of the people here don't even farm. They just use them to flex.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#455

Post by Helloworldboy »

tumdum_ wrote: post #437
9cb14c1ec0 wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very urban perspective. If you are a contractor or farmer in rural America, there is no way to survive without a good sized truck.

Did you know that only 1,6% of US population works in agriculture compared to 5% in Portugal? See https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/employmen...

[dead]

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#456

Post by johnofthesea »

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…

> vehicle sizes in all other countries have also been increasing

Yes SUVs are more common in Europe now but still size is much smaller than in US.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#457

Post by toast0 »

mothballed wrote: post #181
epistasis wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they really need a new law to prevent bikes on freeways? I think that's already highly illegal.

It's legal in Oregon and Montana as long as you stay in the shoulder. You can walk there too. I can't remember the law in Washington. In western states with a lot of rural places only serviced by interstate they sometimes never passed blanket prohibition against non-motorized traffic on the interstate property.

> I can't remember the law in Washington.

I'd bet I-5 in Seattle is bicycles prohibited, but there's no blanket prohibition of bicycles on freeways. Like you said, there's a lot of parts of Washington where the freeway is the only reasonable road, so you can't prohibit bicycles or pedestrians.

Bikes that have motors and don't fit the e-bike tiers are motorcycles ... and could potentially be legal to operate on a bicycle prohibited freeway, but they'd need to be registered and it looks like these don't have plates, and the operator would need a DOT motorcycle helmet which was not present, and I'd bet these are also missing out on the lights and stuff you need too.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#458

Post by somerandomqaguy »

mikepurvis wrote: post #366
tinfoilhatter wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not if you need to tow a trailer / camper. Maybe there's a reason different kinds of vehicles exist? To fulfill different requirements of their drivers?

But families towed tent trailers back in the 80s behind their sedans and station wagons, too. Maybe there's a bit of circular reasoning going on here where people bought giant vehicles because they liked the aesthetics and internal roominess, and then the prevalence of giant vehicles opened up the market for larger and heavier towables— rigid body RVs, seadoos, a trailer full of gas dirt bikes, whatever it is. I also…

I think you're romanticizing that era a bit. The most commonly sold CUV's today are smaller length and width wise then station wagons or sedans way back when. The Crown Victoria was considered a regular sized sedan for it's day and it's as long as a crew cab F150. The land yachts easily match the footprint of the super cab F150 with shorter beds today, they just seem smaller because they're lower.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#459

Post by hn_acc1 »

tinfoilhatter wrote: post #340
NDlurker wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minivans and station wagons are just as good as a Tahoe for transporting a family.

Not if you need to tow a trailer / camper. Maybe there's a reason different kinds of vehicles exist? To fulfill different requirements of their drivers?

Then they can get a license for that class of vehicle and add "towing up to NNNN lbs" option.. Anything over 500 or 1000 lbs towed, for example, IMHO, should require a license.

Obviously not for a hitch-based bicycle carrier - I think most people can manage to use those reasonably safely.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#460

Post by tinyplanets »

aeortiz wrote: post #34
recursivedoubts wrote: post #19

all we want are 70-series land cruisers, prados and suzuki jimnys end the idiotic chicken tax and make small trucks and utes legal again while we are on the topic, full size vans make a lot more sense than "suvs" for most families

Yeah, but no one want's to buy a mom van

That's right, gotta buy that brodozer and show everyone what a real MAN you are!
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