Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Who makes the most reliable new cars?

consumerreports.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

861–870 of 1001 posts

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#861

Post by xmcqdpt2 »

uoaei wrote: post #521
vondur wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People drive horrible now. Running lights, crazy lane changes, excessive speeding etc. Here in the US is started during the pandemic and hasn’t improved.

I've been driving a drinking-age Jeep Cherokee and the acceleration and top speed make me remember how it felt to drive 20 years ago. The street and road design makes a lot more sense at those speeds. We've gotten used to faster and peppier cars over the years but meanwhile the roads haven't changed to accommodate that.

I drive what is basically the slowest new car you can currently buy in North America (0-100 kph in 11 seconds, vroooom). I just have to floor it on highway ramps. Most cars accelerate much quicker, so people get used to never depressing the pedal more than like 1/3 and end up doing 0-100 kph in more than 10 seconds anyway.

IMO the faster acceleration and heavier weight of electric cars will just lead to much more disastrous accident when people (for example) press on the wrong pedal. Long term the extra deaths are probably balanced out if the more dangerous cars displace enough fuel cars and lower carbon emissions and air pollution... but I wish we regulated acceleration (maybe with a different license category, like we do with trucks?)

It shouldn't be possible to kill someone 10 m in front of your car when leaving from a stop because the manufacturer wants to impress professional car reviewers.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#862

Post by CalRobert »

closewith wrote: post #802
pockybum522 wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Started during the pandemic? My friend, I think you just might not remember how terribly people drove pre-pandemic as well.

Here in Ireland, this is visible in road deaths, which have risen significantly this year, reversing a trend of low road deaths as a result of an enormously successful road safety campaign over the previous 30 years. There's noticeably more serious accidents too, although the data won't be available until mid-2024 to confirm. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_road_traffic_acciden...

Notably, Ireland achieved a lot of their reductions in road deaths by taking all the people walking and biking and putting them in a car instead. For instance, compared to the mid-80's about 250% as many kids are driven to school, half as many take public transport, and half as many walk or bike.

Certainly, when I lived there Ireland was a terrible place to bike or walk.

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-cp6ci/p6c...

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#863

Post by ruszki »

koliber wrote: post #695
vondur wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People drive horrible now. Running lights, crazy lane changes, excessive speeding etc. Here in the US is started during the pandemic and hasn’t improved.

I noticed that too, but I am questioning myself. I’m wondering how much other people’s driving has gotten worse, vs me getting older, more defensive and risk averse, and noticing such driving. If I look back to my 20s, I was not an exemplary driver.

One good indicator, when people start to break when traffic light switch to yellow. How many people you see blowing red. Full red, not just “orange”.

It objectively got worse in my country of origin for example.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#865

Post by culi »

yaomtc wrote: post #231
sharkweek wrote: post #213

My 3rd Gen Toyota 4Runner is old enough to drink and outside of routine maintenance requires almost no thought. "It's time to get a new car" given that car safety has drastically improved and I have two younger kids in that thing a few times a week but I'm honestly having a really hard time giving it up, something so reliable and plainly functional. New cars with all their computers and smart technology only look lik…

> car safety has drastically improved Safety between cars, and within cars, has improved. However, due to the increasing size of the average vehicle on the road, among other factors, car safety for pedestrians/cyclists has decreased. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184034017/us-pedestrian-deat...

> car safety for pedestrians/cyclists has decreased

It's also decreased for anyone NOT willing to buy a "light truck" (e.g. a modern SUV). There's a loophole that makes it so that light trucks don't have to be tested against the same safety standards as other vehicles. Basically they just have to prove they're safe to crash into other light trucks but do not have to be tested against regular passenger vehicles. This loophole is credited as one of the main reasons car fatalities have been rapidly growing in the US but falling in most other nations. And also for the massive recent explosion in size (again, mainly observed in the US).

But size is just one factor that's reduced safety. Another one is reduced visibility. One of the contributors to the rise in fatalities has been due to parents literally running over their own children in their driveways. These are low-speed, suburban vehicle fatalities that are not happening in other countries

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#866

Post by culi »

t0bia_s wrote: post #767
yaomtc wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> car safety has drastically improved Safety between cars, and within cars, has improved. However, due to the increasing size of the average vehicle on the road, among other factors, car safety for pedestrians/cyclists has decreased. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184034017/us-pedestrian-deat...

Also with increasing size of vehicles, fuel consumption raise as well. We just pretend, that we care about environment untill we start speaking about our safety.

the only reason people feel like they need a bigger car is because of all the other big cars on the road. A vicious spiral

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#867

Post by culi »

orwin wrote: post #546
eru wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if that's just an American thing, or more global?

It's a US thing, pedestrian safety continued to improve in France (mainly caused by infrastructure improvements), but we are starting to have the same sized cars, with the same issues)

> but we are starting to have the same sized cars

in parts of Europe, vigilante groups are deflating tires of SUVs to discourage people from contributing to this trend. Not that I endorse the practice but it's interesting to consider how unimaginable something like this would be to Americans. Whereas in Europe people can probably at least understand why they're doing what they're doing

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#869

Post by sampo »

vondur wrote: post #453
yaomtc wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> car safety has drastically improved Safety between cars, and within cars, has improved. However, due to the increasing size of the average vehicle on the road, among other factors, car safety for pedestrians/cyclists has decreased. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184034017/us-pedestrian-deat...

People drive horrible now. Running lights, crazy lane changes, excessive speeding etc. Here in the US is started during the pandemic and hasn’t improved.

> People drive horrible now. Running lights, crazy lane changes, excessive speeding etc.

No longer bothering to turn off long beam headlights, when there is oncoming traffic. And with the new bright led lights, the long beams are really bright.

Sometimes even the low beam lights feel too bright, especially if the oncoming car is big, and thus has its headlights sitting higher up.

Re: Who makes the most reliable new cars?

#870

Post by hnick »

tayo42 wrote: post #708
ajmurmann wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this something that's happening because of something Japanese people are doing or because of the perception of Japanese culture where foreigners like Japanese words and thus don't translate it?

To me names of things are like pronouns, why would you change it? Feels weird to me. Though I guess it's weird we didn't do that a lot of Chinese dishes. Soup dumplings instead of Xiao long bao. Idk how to even properly pronounce that.

I think a big part is that Japanese is a lot easier to pronounce for westerners. We won't get it fully right but there are no tones and it transliterates to English pretty well, compared to pretty much every other Asian country.
Post reply on HN