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It needn't have been this tall. With the internal combustion engine out, Ford could have designed a lower, more curved, less deadly front end. Instead, they ke
by bobince 5y ago
It needn't have been this tall. With the internal combustion engine out, Ford could have designed a lower, more curved, less deadly front end.
Instead, they kept the high nose and used the space as a trunk. After all, injuring fewer pedestrians sells no cars. Indeed, the market prefers an enormous, deliberately threatening-looking chariot that makes you feel big and virile.
Ford are behind this game in that they haven't given their truck an explicitly hostile name like “People Mulcher”.
- dls2016 5y agoSmells like a steak and seats 35! https://youtu.be/PI_Jl5WFQkA https://youtu.be/PI_Jl5WFQkA
- jtdev 5y agoRoads are made for large dangerous machines that move fast and can hurt you.
- woah 5y agoThat’s why they should only have one lane for cars with a 25mph speed limit.
- hrktb 5y agoThat's so sad this sarcasm basically became fact after so many decades of going the wrong way. It's also why cities are taking back whole roads from cars when they can, as it's so hard to preserve a middle ground in a lot of areas.
- chrisseaton 5y agoRoads predate cars. Cars took them over from people and far slower horses.
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoSo what? Its a fact today. Nobody going back to horses.
- chrisseaton 5y agoThe ‘so what’ is maybe they should be given back to the people they were originally built for.
- jtdev 5y agoElitist cyclists??
- chrisseaton 5y agoWe had roads before cycles.
- jtdev 5y agoAre you proposing that we turn roads over to foot and equine traffic only? The air was co-opted by planes... should we turn that back over to avian only traffic?
- chrisseaton 5y agoI think it should be the default certainly in cities and much more the default in suburbs than it is now. For the main point was that roads weren’t built for cars - cars co-opted them from people. It doesn’t have to be that way.
- chubot 5y agoCities are made for people; the number people outside of cars greatly exceeds the number inside cars in every city. If what you say is true, then cities should not have roads.
- theodric 5y agoJust because you live in a city, does not mean the city was "made for" you. Cities are a side effect of many people clustering around key resource points. Resources are almost always much more valuable in trade than they are remaining at a stationary point, which requires transport infrastructure and vehicles. The fact that you don't want to live in a city in which people drive vehicles is your problem, not society's.
- pm90 5y agoCities are no longer resource points as most economic activity in cities is generated by services and knowledge work. Even if you go by your logic of economic supremacy, society would want to protect the most valued economic assets in its cities: the people. The death machines are also noisy as fuck and generate pollution, take up valuable and scarce urban space … there is absolutely no need to have huge roads with unrestricted traffic going right up to dense urban centers.
- chubot 5y agoWhat resources?
- jtdev 5y agoAlmost every major American city is also a shipping port, freight train depot, major freight airport hub, etc., etc., manufacturing is still a thing (in fact domestic manufacturing is on the rise in the last decade). Good luck feeding, clothing, sheltering, etc. the millions of inhabitants in American cities without roads that accommodate large trucks and people who do real work.
- piyh 5y agoI'm sure there's some societal tradeoff between global electrification and pedestrian deaths. Until the government adds pedestrian safety to US crash standards, Ford will make what the image conscious truck market wants.
- stfp 5y agoThe market can go nuts, and regarding vehicle size, it is. It's basically an arms race.
- ben7799 5y agoBlame for killing falls on the driver of the vehicle, not on the company designing it or the shape of the front of the vehicle. Don't hit anyone with your vehicle and you won't kill anyone. I've been hit by a truck bicycling, thankfully not too hard. But I don't really think it would have been better to have been hit by a low slung sleek car. It would have put all the force through my legs.
- pm90 5y agoPlease no more of the personal responsibility bullcrap. “Don’t make a mistake and you won’t make a mistake” is a pretty useless statement. When designing mass manufactured items, it is a responsibility of manufacturers to ensure that their products are as safe as they can be.
- aeharding 5y agoIndeed. Even HN cannot see past the perverse dangers and flaws of modern auto design responsible for the current vulnerable road user epidemic in America. [1] When it comes to cars - it's "personal responsibility". When it comes to treadmills - it's a "manufacturing flaw" [2] [1] https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/06/28/suvs-killing-americas-pedestrians/646139002/ https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/06/28/suvs-killi... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26846641 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26846641
- nradov 5y agoShould manufacturers also install governors that limit maximum speed to 55 mph? That would make them as safe as they can be, right?
- DHPersonal 5y agoYou're actually really on to something there.
- Tiktaalik 5y agoyes
- chrisseaton 5y ago> an enormous, deliberately threatening-looking chariot that makes you feel big and virile Most people with a truck are just trying to get their job done. They aren’t trying to look or feel anything.
- isoskeles 5y agoAs someone who doesn't own a truck, I always find it funny when people bring up "big and virile" type lines about truck owners. "They're compensating for something..." These people need to get their minds out of the gutter, stop thinking everything is about penis. Trucks are functional vehicles, like a giant tool for transporting bulky stuff, and I remember this every time I think about asking a friend if I can use his truck for anything. No insult intended here: I assume people who have never had this thought have also never done things like replacing their kitchen cabinets or some other simple home improvement project. That's fine, but it's also quite relatable to many people, and it has nothing to do with penis.
- chrisseaton 5y agoI picture a gardener turning up to work on a tech person's yard, unpacking his mower and tools and soil and plants, and the tech person shaking their head from their window and saying to themselves 'wow he's clearly just got that truck as a substitute penis...'
- ryneandal 5y agoYes, those insults are so incredibly nonsensical. I bought a truck for two reasons. Hauling the occasional thing around (having a home makes this happen more than I had initially thought) and it fits 6 (we just had our last child in January). I WFH so it's lower fuel economy is a non-issue to us. It has literally _nothing_ to do with "feeling big" or any compensation thing. I had no idea how much I'd use the utility until I bit the bullet and purchased one. I'm incredibly excited for the F-150 Lightning because I am a perfect candidate for it.
- munificent 5y ago> I always find it funny when people bring up "big and virile" type lines about truck owners. "They're compensating for something..." These people need to get their minds out of the gutter, stop thinking everything is about penis. I used to work at a horse racing track and every single jockey (really small dudes) had the hugest truck you have ever seen. We're talking Ford F-350 with a lift kit and bigger tires. The works. You needed to use a ladder to get in them. There is definitely a thing that some people want bigger, taller vehicles because it makes them feel bigger and stronger. And there is definitely a thing that truck size becomes a pissing contest for some men where it's not just enough to have a big truck, you need to have the biggest one among your peers. (And if you think nerds are immune to this phenomenon, perhaps take a more critical look at your gaming PC, boardgame collection, etc. We're a tribal species competing for mates using status symbols. Few of us are totally immune to this effect.) At the same time, many truck owners are not motivated by that and painting them all with the same brush is uncharitable and unkind. I drive a pick-up. I absolutely love it. I have yet to kill any children, destroy the ozone layer, crush another car in a parking lot, or any of the other many moral crimes this thread seems to accuse most truck owners of. Paraphrasing Freud, sometimes a truck is just a truck.