U.S. vehicle fuel efficiency standards administered by NHTSA have encouraged automakers to build larger vehicles. The bigger the vehicle, the lower the fuel efficiency target it has to meet.
That’s some monkeys paw type of shit law
Yeah preverse incentives. When doing the wrong thing makes the most sense for the individual. Happens often in tragedy of the commons situations.
If you hit a pedestrian it is better for you that they die. If you find an endangered animal on your land it is better for you to kill it. If you have a child with someone who makes minimum wage it is better for you to divorce.
Maybe it is too much to expect but for things like this, when public policy experts came up with a standard instead of just inheriting a situation, that they plan for these things in advance. Spend a few moments and look at where the incentives are before just hammering a new policy into place.
If you hit a pedestrian it is better for you that they die
Uh maybe in China. I would not say that in the United States. Manslaughter is a serious charge.
You aren’t factoring in civil suits. Someone dead, their family can only get so much. Someone crippled can just keep going after you and might have to as they go into greater and greater levels of debt. What would you do if suddenly your income went down to about 14k USD a year and with each passing day the chances of you returning to work diminished, wouldn’t you be desperate enough to try to win some money from the person who did this to you? Wouldn’t you go along with any shyster lawyer who promised results?
Recently bought a new diesel silverado 3500 for my ranch. It’s enormous, I’m glad I didn’t get the dually option as it’s hard enough to drive in the city. Most of its job however is pulling trailers around.
That said, on highway if I drive the speed limit and take it easy I can get 9L/100km. It’s unreal that such a huge truck will get almost the same economy as our KIA SUV.
That’s Regulatory Capture. Laws made by and for the industry they’re supposed to regulate.
No shit.
big thing smash more than small thing, news at 11
The US public has repeatedly demonstrated that it would rather die than make even minor adjustments in their lives. So don’t expect anything to get done.
Smaller cars? Over my dead body! Literally.
I have been thinking about getting some “Child Killer” stickers to start slapping on trucks that are particularly unsafe and huge. I don’t get why in neighborhoods that in all kinds of other ways frowns upon putting kids at risk (no driving fast for example) dumbass men are allowed to own MASSIVE trucks that raise the risk of running a child over by a huge amount and no one shames them.
Time to start shaming these people more.
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The Netherlands is so bike-friendly right now because of a wave of backlash in the 70s to the harms of their post WW2 car-centric design. The protests were literally called ‘Stop de Kindermoord’, which is Dutch for ‘stop the child-murder’.
Well good for them.
At 1/240th the size of the USA, twice the population of California’s Bay Area, and one of the highest road densities in the world, it sounds like a trifecta of wins.
As long as you don’t need to leave. I have to travel for work Monday longer than the entirety of the Netherlands and half again; I won’t even leave the same state. Bikeing won’t cut it.
Size is entirely a red herring.
Most people work in the same city or metro that they live in. It doesn’t matter how far Boston is from Springfield; 99% of trips a Bostonian makes are to other places in the Boston area. What matters is the design of both cities.
The average commute in the US is under 30 minutes. And the average person doesn’t drive an hour and a half for groceries, to pick up a pizza, or to daycare.
Biking doesn’t cut it in the Netherlands, either. Instead, they have bike parking lots at their train and subway stations, so a multimodal trip to the office is easier. People mostly don’t cycle from one side of Amsterdam to the other; they bike a couple min down the street to the cafe or to get groceries.
Additionally, their road design doesn’t push driving as much. For one thing, you can typically bike a more direct path than you can drive due to better modal separation. For another thing, the roads are less pedestrian hostile. Instead of a wide American-style stroads, you might have a narrow 2-way service street for pedestrians, cyclists and cars with a 15 mph speed limit, and an adjacent high-speed road with no driveways. They don’t try to have people do a left turn from a suicide lane across 2 55-mph lanes and a sidewalk to get tacos.
Seems like your car needs to be stickered haha
And what do you care about?
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Why shouldn’t kids play in the streets? They certainly used to do it all the time. Why don’t we reduce speeds or car access to areas with a lot of pedestrians?
Yes, you have it exactly without irony.
I haven’t seen such blatant victim blaming for a while
Isn’t it kind of silly to you that the vast majority of our modern world is exclusively a car zone? All people have now is sidewalks, right next to all the exhaust fumes.
Yeah, but “ma freedom”
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Well the industry basically made CAFE so…
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I’m implying they made sure there was a pick up sized hole in the regulations.
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Get rid of cafe entirely.
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I have a small truck, and its A pillar has blocked my view of pedestrians more than once. I have to move my head to check. With big vehicles, I imagine there’s even more of a problem.
I ran over my friend in high school while driving a Ford Ranger. She is 5’1 but still, if her hands hadn’t flopped up in the air I might’ve killed her. Worst part is, I’d just dropped her off.
Always need to be careful driving a big vehicle. Learned that the hard way.
Its actually the opposite, the bigger and boxy-er the vehicle, the bigger the windows and the less obstructions from bodywork. The added height also allows you to see much further away and over obstructions like lines of cars, stopped traffic, landscaping, etc. .
I miss pop up headlights
next they’re going to try to tell me tanks are more deadly than four door sedans. does anybody buy this stuff?
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Cars don’t vote. Pedestrians are the only option, except wheelchair bound people I guess. You’re only not a pedestrian when in your car, but you have to encounter other vehicles on foot before and after being in the car.
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I can’t fathom having an imaginary person living rent free in my head.
Never thought I’d see someone describe people like this for specifically not using some random product. What’s next, people who don’t use coffee makers are degenerates too?
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This is oddly specific
Now I want to hear your take on cyclists.
I read that as “Tall trucks, SUVs are 45% deadlier to US presidents, study shows”, and was like: how did they do that study?
Easy, just drive them in Mexico or Canada and they’d be fine.
Lmao, I am sorry you are being down voted. This is funny
These flat fronted high up ones have made their way to Europe how are they legal
Maybe it’s how they are designed. I’ve sat in a number of them that have ugly blind spots. Back left is a big problem on a lot of them.
I’ve responded to a bunch of “car vs pedestrian” calls. With adults a low speed hit is usually some minor injuries like lower legs, arms, etc. If they’re hit hard sometimes their head hits the windshield. The victim ends up on top of the hood and rolls off the side or up and over the car.
If it’s a truck their injuries are more serious. Hip, rib, shoulder/arm, spine, and head injuries. They get hit high and knocked into the ground – and sometimes partially or completely run over.
Yes, it is.
Big cars are heavier, taller, and have larger blind spots. The first two make them deadlier in an accident, the last makes it easier to run someone over in a crosswalk, parking lot or driveway.
