There needs to be regulations on the size of personal vehicles for a shit ton of reasons…
But this one by itself should be enough.
There are… but there are loopholes. Which is why the vehicles get bigger every year. They’re all using loopholes to continue not bothering to meet the standards the regulations set forth.
Loopholes are always going to happen…
But if you close them, then the problem is fixed.
Currently we just ignore them, instead of passing regulations that close the loophole and clarify
We could even go a step further and require plans to be approved by a regulatory agency before mass production can start.
Boom, problem solved forever.
Even better would be if the US switched from “letter of the law” to “spirit of the law” because as it stands, there’s a lot of lawmakers just throwing their hands in the air and saying “well they’re not breaking the letter of the law, so there’s nothing we can do” while completely ignoring that it’s clear that the person in question is breaking the spirit of the law when it was written.
It allows for laws to be endlessly re-interpreted, and at this point even the Supreme Court has tossed out the idea of previous decisions actually mattering. They’ll just re-interpret every law to be beneficial to their purposes every time they need to re-interpret it.
At a certain point you have to stop and admit the loopholes are being left open on purpose.
If you think law has too much room for interpretation when we care about it says, what makes you think anything would improve if we instead cared only about what it meant to say?
The spirit of the law is important in American jurisprudence, but there’s a reason that no serious legal academic advocates for abandoning black-letter interpretation: a cornerstone of jurisprudence is predictability. In order to be justly bound by the law, a reasonable person must be able to understand its borders. This gives rise to principles in US law concerning vagueness (vague laws are void ab initio) and due process. We can’t always ascertain what the “spirit of the law” is, should be, or was intended to be, but we can always ascertain what the law is. Even in common law and case law, standards must be articulated, and the state must give effect to what is actually said, and not what it wishes had been said. Abandoning this principle in order to “close loopholes” is just inviting bad actors who currently exploit oversights to instead wield unbridled power against ordinary people who could never have even anticipated the danger.
That loopholes are left open deliberately is not a failure of legal interpretation. It’s a direct consequence of corruption and regulatory capture. Rewriting American jurisprudence won’t solve those problems. Hanging oil magnates and cheaply purchased bureaucrats will.
The law meant that it’s not a crime if you’re of a certain race, gender, economic status, or sexual orientation.
I mean, the “spirit of the law” itself is extremely vague and allows for even more interpretation than the letter of the law.
You can easily fix the letter of the law by just changing what it says. You can’t fix when the Supreme Court decides that the spirit of the law is contrary to the letter, which they have done repeatedly.
In other words, you’re arguing that we shouldn’t care what the law says, and instead should govern on what we feel the law means.
Following the spirit of the law would be extremely dangerous as one’s interpretation of the spirit of the law maybe comply differently from another. There’s also the issue of being punished for following what is written in the law only to be unjustly punished for something that’s not written anywhere in the law. How are you supposed to trust the law if you cannot rely upon that law to be accurate? The real issue is lawmakers not covering all of every edge case either that be out of ignorance or malice and allowing those loopholes to exist in the first place.
There needs to be a social cost of owning these abominations. If we make it more expensive or more regulated, they’ll still find the people who want to drive them. If we make them embarrassing, shameful, or otherwise costly in social standing, the market for them will soon collapse.
Other countries require a special license for vehicles that big.
It costs more, and requires frequent tests, written and driving. The large vehicles are also prohibited from driving down small side streets and using normal parking spaces.
Because at this size, they’re only needed as commercial vehicles.
I live in Basel, Switzerland, lovely old city, very unfriendly to cars, which is fine due to the great public transit. There is this one dickhead who has a bright, shiny red Dodge Ram. It’s monstrous. And it doesn’t fuckin’ fit in the streets, I’d love to see how much in fines that idiot has had for blocking trams, traffic, and all the other nonsense I’ve seen it do, was actually stuck in traffic once because it got stuck on a corner, took 30 mins to get it backed up and out of the way.
But hey, at least he’s famous now, sort of
Infamous, more like.
The conservative Supreme Court is about to make that a lot harder in a few days. Get ready for the Canonaro to be real.
What decision is this? I’ve not been paying attention to Supreme Court doings lately.
The Dobbs case of this session is Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Raimondo, and it’s looking like the court is going to side with the conservatives.
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/17/1224939610/supreme-court-chevron-doctrine
Right now Congress gives regulatory agencies general guidelines, and the agencies work out the finer details. Soon it will likely be left to Congress and the courts to iron out those finer details. And both of those bodies are slow, and courts are fragmented across states.
It’s actually a few different cases, but they all hinge on whether the Executive branch has a legal standing to create Federal agencies that can create and execute regulation.
There’s a good chance we could soon be in a USA where experts don’t have a voice, and the courts suddenly are in charge of the regulatory state.
There are lots of little cases, but the nuclear bomb is Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Raimondo.
Loper will be to regulation as Dobbs was to abortion.
This is the no more EPA, FAA, FDA etc case right?
Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Raimondo.
As Ghostalmedia pointed out, this case is specifically the one where the Supreme Court has been specifically asked to rule on whether the Chevron defense (the bedrock case that allows the US administrative state to functionally exist) should be overruled outright, or at least limited in scope.
Chevron Defense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natural_Resources_Defense_Council,_Inc.
Current Major Case In Question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loper_Bright_Enterprises_v._Raimondo#Supreme_Court
Chevron
Road taxes should increase after certain dimensions and weights. Bonnet/hood height should be one.
Also, safety ratings should give equal weighting to the a vehicle’s impact absorbtion and impact contribution. It’s insane that something is considered safe solely because the occupant is protected.
Agreed. They should but there are these Cafe Standards that need to be dealt with. The cars have to be larger to be exempt because we’re using wheel base to help determine fuel economy (it should be weight not wheelbase) These exemptions need to go away.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy
I haven’t given it much thought before but you’re right, that is insane.
I think places that aren’t America tend to do that, taxing by engine size. It’s not a perfect solution considering sports cars and such, but you’re not gonna find a 6L engine in a Kia
, I felt physically threatened just standing next to some of the products
Yes, that’s why they make them like that.
No shit? I forget where I saw the comparison but the length of the view that is blocked when being in a big ass truck is absolutely insane. There could be a gaggle of kids in front of you and you would never know until you hit them.
I mentioned this is another comment, but the crazy thing is that’s the driver’s view from M1 Abrams. Typically, in hatches open operation you’d either have a Crew Commander (and/or gunner) standing with their torso out of the turret for better visibility (and a second set of eyes), or a ground guide watching where you go.
Perhaps we should introduce a commander’s hatch to help large pickup trucks safely navigate around neighborhoods.
Ooh, we should introduce Maritime Pilots to cars!
Just pick up a spotter who knows the territory when you enter a town and they can safely navigate your massive ego truck around the tricky streets.
Bearcats have a rotating roof hatch.
That’d be the one.
On another note, I think your comment is causing the Boost app to crash. :/
Was seriously considering a pickup as my next car until my partner pointed me to similar research a while back.
They also seriously injure the people they do hit.
A car tends to hit low and send people onto the hood. A truck hits high (head and torso injuries) and knocks people to the ground where they get run over.
There could be a gaggle of kids in front of you and you would never know until you hit them.
Republicans: As long as they’re not white…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jN7mSXMruEo&t=559s
There is a good visualization in this video (These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us by Not Just Bikes) at the timestamp I linked (roughly 9 minutes 19 seconds), cited from KidsAndCars.org
Modern trucks have shitty visibility all the way around. I borrow my dad’s Colorado and my boss’s F-150 frequently and I always feel like I’m driving a school bus and feel like I can’t see shit. They have backup cameras but it’s not that great(and the idea that a backup camera should be required to operate a vehicle safely in the first place is abhorrent to me anyway). I never had any issues with my S10 back in the day and I could fit more shit in the bed.
There’s another extreme, when a friend of mine took me for a ride in a two-seat convertible BMW X2 it felt like I was barely above ground. When one of the SUVs was near us at a traffic light it felt like it was going to run over us without even noticing
it felt like it was going to run over us without even noticing
Yeah that’s because they have shitty visibility. Also the reason I’ll never ride a motorcycle in traffic.
Yeah, my friend noted exactly the same about visibility that time 😅
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
It is honestly a major failure of US society (comedians I am looking at you) that people aren’t made fun of for driving these trucks so mercilessly that most people feel too ashamed to drive them.
I mean lots of other failures too, it shouldn’t be legal especially because there is zero reason for the high hood height from a vehicle function perspective. Unless of course you consider your vehicle being more efficient at killing pedestrians a reason to have them that way. I suppose we have entered that stage of things here in the US haven’t we.
If you’re relying on comedians to save you, you might want to rethink your strategy.
It’s probably better than hoping corporations and politicians rein things in though.
I mean I agree lol
A truck has to have a nose that looks like a big slab of concrete to oncoming traffic. If it doesn’t men will be forced to wear dresses, sing show tunes while sitting to pee. Thems the rules.
I sit to pee because I’m lazy. The dresses I wear while belting out ballads from Skykid shows are just to assert my dominance in the workplace.
This according to a study published in the journal “No Shit Quarterly”.
But they need their Emotional Support Vehicles!
Refer to them as Gender Affirming Care, and watch the fragile pavement princesses lose their minds. Why do you drive the truck? Cuz you feel like it’s what a real man would drive? Congrats, that’s gender affirming care.
Bonus points if that truck has never seen a day of real truck work.
That’s a good 80% of the monstrous pickups in my neighborhood.
But i Like sITTinG uP hIGhEr
This is a legitimate desire, I think. Being able to see more of what’s ahead is really luxurious and makes the whole driving experience feel safer (for drivers, anyway.) That said, now that every car on the street is a damned SUV, you’d need a damned semi truck to gain any real visibility advantage. Driving a “normal” car is like being the only dwarf in the NBA.
And sitting higher doesn’t necessitate a ridiculously high hood; look at any van ever.
!okay there are probably exceptions but you get my point!<
Sitting up higher only makes you feel safer. A taller car (especially a hatchback on stilts like most crossovers are) makes you more likely to roll over, and less able to make defensive maneuvers.
That said, now that every car on the street is a damned SUV, you’d need a damned semi truck to gain any real visibility advantage.
Get one of those Google Street View cars with the 360 degree cameras on a pole and wear VR goggles or something.
The seats keep creeping up higher but so do the windows. And the windows are farther and farther away from the driver. If we continue the current trend, soon there will be no more than slits on eye level.
If you remember older cars like Mr Beans Mini, the windows went down to the elbows and were right up to the driver. Of course that’s less comfortable, but I prefer the all around view of older cars to the “elevated position” with firing holes for windows.
The windows-down-to-elbows cars were rolling coffins, safety-wise. I think once self-driving is ubiquitous, car designs can be completely reimagined.
I’d love a periscope, personally. Larry David was on to something, but it’s not exactly “cool”…
That’s what unicycles are for.
My 5 year old son loves Monster Trucks. We walked past one of these behemoth in stock form and he thought it was a monster truck. He wasn’t far off.
Pedestrian infrastructure is not typically great either
I just biked home and cars were in the bike lane for 90% of it. The plows pulled all the reflectors off the road and now drivers can’t tell where the lanes are. Even though that entire lane is the dedicated right turn lane, they go in the bike lane. When we had snow a few days ago, pedestrians were in the road because the snow was plowed into the bike lane and sidewalk. Fuck 99.9% of US and Canadian infrastructure
The main downtown area where I live, that’s supposed to be walkable, just has sidewalks vanish halfway down some streets so you end up walking in the street for a few blocks. It’s so bad lol
deleted by creator
In the US that is. In many other western countries, pedestrian infrastructure is awesome and advanced. On the other hand, they usually also don’t have many of these trucks. Double whammy for US pedestrians.
Try the all new Dodge Pedestrian Rammer.
Ford F-150… the best selling child mulcher in the United States.
Now with optional add on to munch 20% more child per child!
It’s ok though, in about 30 years after 2 million children are dead, we’ll make a law that limits the height of hoods, effective 5 years from then.
We’ll also add exclusions for cars above a certain wheel well distance, which will only further incentivize carmakers to make bigger cars.
/s but not really, because this is literally how emissions regulations work. Emissions regulations are less strict as wheel well distance increases, so larger cars can be less efficient. Which is why car makers have heavily pushed for larger cars via marketing, astroturfing, etc, because it means regulatory compliance is easier.
Trucks like this are like having a huge gut, where you haven’t seen your …uhhh feet for years.
We got rid of pop-up headlights because they were causing pedestrian deaths, but I don’t think we’ll do anything about these monstrosities because not only are they deadly, they’re not fun. And our regulators want to prevent fun more than they want to prevent death.
I hadn’t heard this before. How were pop-up headlights killing pedestrians?
A pedestrian’s body doesn’t slide up the hood obstruction-free. It gets mangled by a sconce.
Thanks for the explanation.
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s 1998 Global Technical Regulation Number 9 deals with pedestrian safety sets out how countries should test the pedestrian safety of vehicle exteriors. The U.K.'s Individual Vehicle Approval framework, which is based on the aforementioned Global Technical Regulation, limits the size and presence of sharp edges on any surface where a pedestrian or cyclist is likely to impact in the event of a collision. According to the U.K. regulation, protrusions greater than 5 mm (0.195 inches) must have a radius of at least 2.5 mm (0.098 inches), and further rules prohibit protrusions on which pedestrians could get caught in the event on an impact. These and other regional E.U. laws made it prohibitively difficult to engineer pop-up headlights into a vehicle.
They weren’t killing people, I don’t think, but they were unnecessarily sharp protrusions. They can still be used, but you have to make them roundish and smooth, which is tougher to accomplish with a flush-with-hood-look. It’s more that to meet EU regulations, they would look uglier.
I think the bigger issue isn’t death but simply that you can get caught on them, instead of rolling over the vehicle, which causes less harm.
deleted by creator
Not quite right. They became common due to a combination of aerodynamics and lamp height restrictions. Especially in the US, which used to require one of a small list of sealed beam designs which weren’t at all aerodynamic. They are still technically legal, but difficult to integrate with protrusion restrictions. The US also dropped the sealed beam restriction decades ago, so there wad no point in trying.
I thought we ditched popup headlights because having a piece of critical illumination on a moveable body panel was a bad idea?
