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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

#571

Post by mips_avatar »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #551
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…

> 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 riders. From my perspective it's the other way around. Bikers don't pay taxes, don't follow traffic laws, they generally do whatever they want with total impunity while the law actively protects them. Meanwhile drivers pay taxes, get ticketed for violations and have to bend over backwards in orde…

Everyone I know who bike commutes also owns a car and pays taxes on it.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#572

Post by suralind »

I was in US three times for work events. Every single time I would try to walk somewhere and would be forced to navigate around pickup trucks stopped in the middle of a freaking crosswalk. Sometimes those cars were so large that I could stand right in front of it and I’m convinced the driver would not be able to see me. It was by far the worst thing about my time in the US. Like you have so much space, why do you need to block the damn crossing?

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#573

Post by kube-system »

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?

Was there something that happened that changed the needs of US families after 2009?

Because the trend in TFA only happened in the US, and only after 2009.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#574

Post by Rover222 »

The solution is not to ban large vehicles. Self-driving vehicles are what will solve this problem (slowly, as the current fleet of human-driven vehicles phases out). In general, having humans drive vehicles is incredibly dangerous. Small cars too.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#575

Post by xnx »

seabird wrote: post #533
xnx wrote: post #23

Unfortunately, in the car size arms race, bigger and heavier cars are safer for their occupants. "Everyone outside the car be damned" is the expressed preference of US buyers.

Thumb through IIHS numbers and you'll see that "bigger is better" doesn't pass a sniff test. https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-...

Good data point. I'd assume that drivers of big cars are often worse/more dangerous drivers. Hard to control for in statistics, but a good driver in a big car is more protected against other bad drivers. For reference, I drive a compact car.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#576

Post by CoffeeOnWrite »

Marsymars wrote: post #510
rpcope1 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's honestly frustrating that you can't buy anything like an S10, an O.G. Ranger, Jeep XJ, or even the 90's and early 00's GM and Ford full size trucks. I understand they were at least marginally less safe in a crash, but I think changes could have been made to get them safer and more efficient without compromising the ease of repair and generally more pleasant driving experience. It's amazing how much more divorced…

> It's honestly frustrating that you can't buy anything like an S10, an O.G. Ranger, Jeep XJ, or even the 90's and early 00's GM and Ford full size trucks. The Ford Maverick exists!

It's quad cab only though, unlike the S10 or O.G. Ranger.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#577

Post by Rover222 »

tills13 wrote: post #550

Beyond just being dangerous, it's also incredibly frustrating to go down to my local grocery store and 50% of the stalls have these massive trucks and SUVs sticking out over the sidewalk / into the through-road / taking up literally the entire width of the stall. It boggles me that people buy these things and then use them for puttering around town 99% of the time.

You sound like a good candidate for EU citizenship.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#578

Post by Rover222 »

giantg2 wrote: post #127

The headline is wildly incorrect. Large vehicles are only responsible for about a 7.5% increase. Odd they aren't talking about the bigger issues at play and chose to mislead us. “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…

NYT editors are so subtly deceptive. It's disappointing.

Re: The deadly rise of giant trucks and SUVs

#580

Post by genxy »

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…

Why do you focus on the old data and not the new data? It is 2026 and hood height for trucks and crossovers (which didn't exist in 2009) has be getting higher and this is what the research talks about.

It isn't weight, it is hood height and blunt fronts. But the Great Bluntening didn't happen until recently.

https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicles-with-higher-more-v...

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