7 ms·

Pedestrian Deaths and Large Vehicles

45 points by oftenwrong 5y ago

caconym_ 5y ago
Large vehicles, especially pickups with high hood heights, are a public health disaster; a deliberate atrocity on the part of those who manufacture and sell them; and a gross dereliction of duty on the part of those who should be regulating their proliferation. In addition to killing pedestrians at high rates, they disproportionately kill occupants of other vehicles too--one study I saw recently found a 2.5x increase in fatality rate in cars colliding with trucks vs. other cars.
- Arrath 5y ago
  Sadly the typical response to this tends to be an arms race like "Well I better be the one in the bigger truck, then!"
  - caconym_ 5y ago
    And the real shame is, it's a perfectly rational one. I might be starting a family soon, and I honestly don't know how I'm going to navigate this hazard.
    - nerdponx 5y ago
      Minivan might be a good compromise, arguably more practical than the truck anyway, unless the truck is for work or other usage that actually justifies the truck-ness of it.
      - caconym_ 5y ago
        Minivans are exactly what we need to go back to. Problem is, in an arms race like this they may have mass on their side but they don't put passengers high up enough to be safe from a truck, especially a modified one.
        crooked-v 5y ago
        A starting point here would be regulations around driver visibility.
        waiseristy 5y ago
        Minivans are part of the problem according to this paper "I find pickup trucks, minivans and SUVs all significantly increase pedestrian fatalities relative to cars. Converting 10% of the vehicle fleet from cars to pickups is estimated to increase the pedestrian fatality rate by .04 deaths per 100,000 residents (3.4% in the median metro). I find that converting 10% of cars to minivans would increase pedestrain deaths by .05 deaths per 100,000 residents (3.9% in the median metro). Converting 10% of cars to SUVs would increase pedestrian deaths by .03 deaths per 100,000, or 2.6% in the median metro. In column 4 I further break out SUVs into Large and Small SUVs." If I'm reading this right, it's the worst of the 3
        caconym_ 5y ago
        Interesting. I wonder if it's a visibility thing, or vehicle geometry, or traits common to the typical minivan driver, or what. I would expect to find that they are not as dangerous to occupants of other vehicles as trucks and larger, higher-riding SUVs, which is half of what I'm talking about here, but I could absolutely be wrong about that.
        waiseristy 5y ago
        Trucks have ground clearance, their bumpers are still at a side-crash-bar level. Minivans also weigh nearly as much as most trucks. Typically more than a light duty truck. This study and the title of this post obviously state that Large Vehicles == More Pedestrian Deaths. Be it a minivan, Tesla, Truck, or whatever. Everyone in this thread finger-pointing at their perceived cultural enemies identities is straight up moronic
        randerson 5y ago
        If I had to hazard a guess, minivans look to have a higher center of gravity than SUVs, so it is easier to lose control. And for whatever reason Porsche/BMW/Mercedes have performance-oriented SUVs with sports-car-like handling and braking, whereas nobody seems to be doing this with minivans, so this may skew the results in favor of SUVs. Why trucks fare better than minivans though, I have no idea..
      - giantg2 5y ago
        I agree that minivans are very useful. There's also cost to consider. When I was looking, the basic minivan was at least $5k more than a basic work truck with extended cab.
    - louwrentius 5y ago
      Buy a used 18-wheeler. The mileage is not great but safety comes first right? And you won't even notice pedestrians, as a nice added bonus. Any reference to Mad Max - Fury Road is just coincidence. “If the government wanted people to drive safely, they’d mandate a spike in the middle of each steering wheel.” – Gordon Tullock May I invite you to migrate to Western-Europe? You can even do without a car if you want to.
      - caconym_ 5y ago
        I am actually a UK citizen, and you can bet I've been thinking about this possibility a lot in the last few years. (Though maybe the UK doesn't really count as "western Europe" anymore?)
        louwrentius 5y ago
        Ok, thought it wasn’t as bad with regard to large cars over there as we don’t have those humongous trucks the US have. Or are you in the US? I would invite you to The Netherlands but the housing prices and rent are beyond insane… not sure that would work out.
    - nabilhat 5y ago
      It's a legitimately hard choice to base on real world statistics, more due to availability than anything else. IIHS does present some basic detail for occupants [0] [1], although only as recent as 4 years so statistics can have some time to build. That's okay, it's enough to put some perspective on new cars as well. It's at least a partially objective look at what safety by pickup vs sedan vs minivan vs whatever looks like for the people inside your vehicle. [0] https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-model https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-... [1] pdf https://www.iihs.org/api/datastoredocument/status-report/pdf/55/2 https://www.iihs.org/api/datastoredocument/status-report/pdf...
  - giantg2 5y ago
    There are plenty of people who get trucks and SUVs because they don't make large cars anymore. I had an 89 Caprice and it was like riding a couch down the highway. Look at a Taurus or Impala today and I barely fit. Edit: Why downvote? It's all true
    - jdavis703 5y ago
      The average American male is 5 foot 9 inches. I’m average height and easily fit in sub-compact cars. Yes some people need the extra space, but that’s a minority of drivers.
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        Americans have gotten a lot fatter since the 80s and 90s and new car buyers have gotten a lot older. Getting in and out of a truck or SUV is worlds better for people who are overweight or who's joints have jumped the shark than getting down into a car.
        jdavis703 5y ago
        Getting down or up in to a car shouldn’t matter. In order to get out the exact opposite action has to be performed.
        throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        Do you live in a world with spherical cows? The human body isn't that efficient. Getting down into a car if your body is old or packing a lot of weight requires exertion as does getting back out. And the average new car buyer probably has at least one of these or is married to someone who is.
        kelnos 5y ago
        Maybe people would start to take better care of their health if they had to face pulling themselves out of a lower-to-the-ground car several times a day. SUVs and trucks address the symptom, not the disease.
  - DFHippie 5y ago
    "Arms race" is very apt. For some reason "the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a monstrous truck is a good guy with a monstrous truck" is echoing in my head.
- crooked-v 5y ago
  For some visual comparisons of absurdly tall trucks: https://twitter.com/heatxdeath/status/1338979670629429249 https://twitter.com/heatxdeath/status/1338979670629429249 https://twitter.com/lockheedfartin/status/1338985486510075906 https://twitter.com/lockheedfartin/status/133898548651007590... https://twitter.com/Powflip/status/1055946188430757890 https://twitter.com/Powflip/status/1055946188430757890 Modern consumer trucks have hoods taller than some full-grown adults, let alone children.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    Smaller adults, for sure. I'm less than six feet tall and I can stand in front of my F250 and easily look down at the engine, and AFAIK it is one of the taller (if not the tallest) packages that Ford makes from the factory. That people modify their vehicles is without question, and the examples you gave look like they're all aftermarket lifts.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    These are misleading, cherry picked examples: - Your first link is comparing a new lifted truck with aftermarket body mods to an older model of a stock SUV. - Your second link is comparing one of the smallest vehicles on the market, an older Mazda Miata, to a newer F-250 (a larger Ford "Super Duty" truck) with a lift, aftermarket wheels, and aftermarket tires. - Your third link is comparing a boat of unknown size to a full-size pickup truck, and even from the angle provided, the boat is bigger.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      Why do people lift their trucks? Is it just for the looks? I cannot imagine that many people need to much offroad capability, they don't live on a farm.
      - throwawaysea 5y ago
        I have no idea why people lift their trucks to the extreme - I don't own a truck or understand the culture well, although I am familiar with the vehicles to some extent. My take is that most people who lift their trucks do it more for looks or status than for practical reasons. Having a small amount of lift and larger wheels with offroad tires probably does help with practical capability. You can see this with newer trucks that manufacturers produce in offroad trims (example https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/f150-tremor/ https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/f150-tremor/). But larger lifts are indeed impractical for offroad capability since they would alter your center of gravity and other aspects. Most serious offroad vehicles have good clearance but not extreme clearance, since they are also accounting for numerous other factors to give the vehicle reliability, safety, and offroad capability.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  > Large vehicles, especially pickups with high hood heights, are a public health disaster This feels hyperbolic. I, and I imagine most people in the US, don't think our daily lives are a "disaster" and don't go outside in fear of vehicles, let alone large vehicles. We also derive a lot of utility from vehicles that makes our lives better. The choice to rely on cars or purchase a larger vehicle isn't made with solely risks and nothing positive on the balance. I feel the focus on vehicle-related fatalities is safetyism, given that there is only 1 fatality per 100 million miles traveled in the US.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - version_five 5y ago
    You're apparently wrong, as you can see from the moderation. Failure to acknowledge the public health crisis that is large vehicles makes you a denier whose opinions need to be fact checked.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    > We also derive a lot of utility from vehicles that makes our lives better. Most of the people I know who have purchased SUVs do so in large part because they believe that there are a lot of other SUVs on the road, and they will be more likely to survive a collision with an SUV if they themselves are in an SUV. Another big reason is that they have kids, and in reality want a minivan, but minivans aren't "cool", so they get a SUV instead. Not many people I know buy them for "sport utility" reasons. Maybe they drive it out to Tahoe two or three times a year (which doesn't require an SUV; a 4WD/AWD sedan is probably more stable on windy, winding, snowy roads anyway), but that hardly justifies the need. > there is only 1 fatality per 100 million miles traveled in the US Just because a number "feels" low to you, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to eliminate preventable deaths in order to drag that number even lower. For people whose activities are genuinely made easier, safer, better, and more comfortable with an SUV than a sedan, that's great; I have no quarrel with them. But my -- perhaps non-representative, admittedly -- experience with SUV owners is that they are buying them for the wrong reasons, which reduces safety for the rest of us.
  - 5y ago
- giantg2 5y ago
  One should note that crash safety ratings found on cars generally compare collisions with vehicles of the same size and weight. So it can be misleading when you consider the larger vehicles. Also, what is your proposed solution?
  - caconym_ 5y ago
    > One should note that crash safety ratings found on cars generally compare collisions with vehicles of the same size and weight. So it can be misleading when you consider the larger vehicles. How does this relate to my comment? Or is it just a general observation that trucks may be a greater danger to drivers and passengers in smaller vehicles than said vehicles' crash safety results would suggest? In that case, I would agree. > Also, what is your proposed solution? Some starting points off the top of my head: * Higher taxes/registration fees/etc on owning and operating large personal vehicles. * More stringent licensing requirements for operating large vehicles. * Restrictions on how large personal vehicles can be marketed, and/or cigarette-style disclaimers on ads. * Safety-focused regulation that effectively bans dangerous stock vehicle configurations. * Safety-focused regulation that effectively bans dangerous aftermarket modifications. And, crucially, enforcement thereof. I could go on.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      "Or is it just a general observation that trucks may be a greater danger to drivers and passengers in smaller vehicles than said vehicles' crash safety results would suggest?" Not only trucks, but yes. Even compact cars vs full size cars (eg Tesla S v Dodge Dart). There's only so much that engineering can do to compensate for mass discrepancies. "Higher taxes/registration fees/etc on owning and operating large personal vehicles." Most states do this already with the registration. Of course there's the second order taxation on the increased fuel usage. "More stringent licensing requirements for operating large vehicles." This should be done for all vehicles since the tests are a joke. Not to mention there's the possibility that the smaller cars involved in the crashes could be at fault (ie not all truck involved crashes are the fault of the truck and increased training just for the larger vehicle won't help them). "Restrictions on how large personal vehicles can be marketed, and/or cigarette-style disclaimers on ads." I don't really see the point of this. If anything the disclaimer would be promoting the safety for the prospective buyer, providing incentive to buy it. "Safety-focused regulation that effectively bans dangerous stock vehicle configurations." What would that look like beyond the current requirements? "Safety-focused regulation that effectively bans dangerous aftermarket modifications." I could see some utility in this. Is there any data to show the frequency with which non-illegal modifications where a contributing factor so that cost benefit analysis could be performed?
- nabilhat 5y ago
  There was an effort around 15 years ago to join all-parties death and major injury numbers on vehicle make and model (USA data only). I really wish I could find it now - it's a great example of how traffic safety data applicability can be improved, and it's a shame that public data doesn't support this without substantial amounts of work. I've made my own choices from this kind of ethical basis - I can't morally justify feeling like I've marginally increased my personal safety if doing so significantly increases the risk exposure to non-consenting bystanders.
Karrot_Kream 5y ago
America needs to set pedestrian and cyclist safety standards for motor vehicles. Europe has mandated survivability in crashes at certain speeds, but America continues to believe that the only relevant actor that needs safety in America's transportation network is the driver of their own vehicle. Here's an article from 2007 (!) [1] that talks about how America continues to try to focus on driver education, despite America consistently having some of the laxest drivers' license standards in the Western world. A recipe for a public health disaster indeed. No wonder Americans see anything other than a car as impractical; anyone other than a driver or a passenger is a safety afterthought. EDIT: Here's a more recent take on the same issue. Not much has changed apparently. [2] 1: https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2007/12/the-truth-about-europes-pedestrian-safety-legislation/ https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2007/12/the-truth-about-eu... 2: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/12/07/while-other-countries-mandate-safer-car-designs-for-pedestrians-america-does-nothing/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/12/07/while-other-countries...
- giantg2 5y ago
  There has been a push for pedestrian safety. Just look at the plastic bumpers. Didn't the Tesla truck fail its pedestrian test the way it was configured when unveiled? I agree that the driver tests are a joke. 90% of driving is making good decisions, yet there's not any real testing around this - even the driving test is not long enough to observe these behaviors. Instead it focuses on the other 10% of laws and physical ability, and pretty poorly at that (50 multiple choice questions yet hundreds or even thousands of driving related laws and regs).
  - makeitdouble 5y ago
    TBF in places where driving is a core component of basic everyday life, raising the bar for getting a license will be a wildly unpopular and potentially life destroying measure. It should totally be done, but needs to come with/after a rework of what the alternatives are for people who’re not fit to drive.
    - giantg2 5y ago
ed25519FUUU 5y ago
It looks like the author has a link to this study as a PDF: http://www.justintyndall.com/uploads/2/8/5/5/28559839/tyndall_pedestrian.pdf http://www.justintyndall.com/uploads/2/8/5/5/28559839/tyndal...
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  Thanks for sharing the study - the original link just goes to a login screen for me. I haven't read the study fully but the main conclusion is that converting every light truck (SUV, pickup, minivan) in the country to a (smaller) car would save around 800 lives a year. That seems like a very small number in the grand scheme of things. The value of a life in the US used in mortality analyses is something like $7 million - which for 800 lives is $5.6B. The market for light trucks is far bigger than that - even just one model like the F-150 generates something like $50B in revenue a year. What this means is that people are deriving vastly more value from the presence of light trucks than the loss we see from them.
simonebrunozzi 5y ago
Brasilia has a much higher number of pedestrian deaths compared to similar cities in Brazil, or other parts of the world. Why? Its (terrible) design. Do not forget that city design has a huge impact on pedestrian deaths. In essence: larger roads, more deaths. Fewer deaths in old cities, because of narrower streets from past centuries.
- kelnos 5y ago
  Sure, but you can compare deaths in a city from 30 years ago, when larger vehicles were less common, to deaths today, in that same city, when they are more common.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
rytcio 5y ago
The reason why US cars are so big are because of recent (within the last decade) safety standards. Cars could be much smaller and more efficient, but because of safety standards...they're massive now.
- s0rce 5y ago
  The Hyundai Kona is tiny (for a 2021 vehicle at least) and has really good safety ratings https://www.iihs.org/ratings/vehicle/hyundai/kona-4-door-suv/2021 https://www.iihs.org/ratings/vehicle/hyundai/kona-4-door-suv...
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Don't forget, those safety ratings are against similar size and weight vehicles. So I can see this as being true that safety regulations may not be the biggest contributor, but overall safety may be (eg designing for impacts with larger vehicles).
- JKCalhoun 5y ago
  MazdaMX-5sayswhat?
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  I dunno why this got downvoted. The trend of increased size and weight for a static amount of interior space (or decreased interior space for a given size/weight) is well known and documented.
- avianlyric 5y ago
  EU safety standards were originally derived from US standards, and yet our cars aren’t even close to the monstrosities you have riding around in the US.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    Europeans are much, much more comfortable using taxes to drive policy.
jwilber 5y ago
For the overwhelmingly majority of owners, large trucks are completely unnecessary. Non-owners effectively subsidize them when you factor in the huge negative externalities they impose, including on the environment, the wear and tear on roads, the public safety hazards, production opportunity costs, etc. This thread summarizes things well: https://twitter.com/PostCultRev/status/1419689420714700805?s=20 https://twitter.com/PostCultRev/status/1419689420714700805?s...
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  > For the overwhelmingly majority of owners, large trucks are completely unnecessary. How do you propose to quantify "unnecessary"? And what would your solution be?
  - jwilber 5y ago
    Unnecessary may simply be the % of use by the truck dedicated to just commuting, where that % is so high as to not justify the negative externalities imposed by such a vehicle. Pretty standard stuff in actuarial work. Anecdotally, my compact, hatchback Kia Rio and can fit four +9ft surfboards just fine. A solution would be taxing larger vehicles to take into account the externalities they create, or do like myself and purchase a safer vehicle that can load just as easily. If you’re not moving heavy equipment, you don’t need a big truck. If you are, treat it like a fork-list: assign a license.
    - giantg2 5y ago
      Most states already have higher registration taxes. Plus you have second order taxes like paying more fuel tax because they are less efficient. "If you’re not moving heavy equipment, you don’t need a big truck. If you are, treat it like a fork-list: assign a license." Do you mean pickups or actual big trucks? Big trucks do require different license classes.
  - asdff 5y ago
    Is there one person in the cab? Is the bed empty? Then its unnecessary. You could quantify this unnecessary factor explicitly, divide the weight of persons+cargo by the weight of the vehicle and we could call the resulting ratio "ridiculousness" with a certain threshold. If I really need to do truck stuff one day, I rent one from the hardware store.
waiseristy 5y ago
Interesting data, Minivans are the real boogyman. Maybe this has to do with the demographics of the drivers / passengers? Also important to point out, a 2021 Oddesy or Sienna weighs within 100-200 lbs of an F150 depending on the trim level.
captainoats 5y ago
https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes... has a lot of interesting statistics on this matter. Seems like the largest unique cohorts at risk are intoxicated people in urban areas at night and the elderly. Not sure blaming truck and SUV design is the most effective solution to this problem as it seems mental status is a big player here.
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  You can change truck/suv design. You can't stop people in cities havibg a drink or getting old...

45 points by oftenwrong 5y ago

Large vehicles, especially pickups with high hood heights, are a public health disaster; a deliberate atrocity on the part of those who manufacture and sell them; and a gross dereliction of duty on the part of those who should be regulating their proliferation. In addition to killing pedestrians at high rates, they disproportionately kill occupants of other vehicles too--one study I saw recently found a 2.5x increase in fatality rate in cars colliding with trucks vs. other cars.

Arrath 5y ago
Sadly the typical response to this tends to be an arms race like "Well I better be the one in the bigger truck, then!"
- caconym_ 5y ago
  And the real shame is, it's a perfectly rational one. I might be starting a family soon, and I honestly don't know how I'm going to navigate this hazard.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    Minivan might be a good compromise, arguably more practical than the truck anyway, unless the truck is for work or other usage that actually justifies the truck-ness of it.
    - caconym_ 5y ago
      Minivans are exactly what we need to go back to. Problem is, in an arms race like this they may have mass on their side but they don't put passengers high up enough to be safe from a truck, especially a modified one.
      - crooked-v 5y ago
        A starting point here would be regulations around driver visibility.
      - waiseristy 5y ago
        Minivans are part of the problem according to this paper "I find pickup trucks, minivans and SUVs all significantly increase pedestrian fatalities relative to cars. Converting 10% of the vehicle fleet from cars to pickups is estimated to increase the pedestrian fatality rate by .04 deaths per 100,000 residents (3.4% in the median metro). I find that converting 10% of cars to minivans would increase pedestrain deaths by .05 deaths per 100,000 residents (3.9% in the median metro). Converting 10% of cars to SUVs would increase pedestrian deaths by .03 deaths per 100,000, or 2.6% in the median metro. In column 4 I further break out SUVs into Large and Small SUVs." If I'm reading this right, it's the worst of the 3
        caconym_ 5y ago
        Interesting. I wonder if it's a visibility thing, or vehicle geometry, or traits common to the typical minivan driver, or what. I would expect to find that they are not as dangerous to occupants of other vehicles as trucks and larger, higher-riding SUVs, which is half of what I'm talking about here, but I could absolutely be wrong about that.
        waiseristy 5y ago
        Trucks have ground clearance, their bumpers are still at a side-crash-bar level. Minivans also weigh nearly as much as most trucks. Typically more than a light duty truck. This study and the title of this post obviously state that Large Vehicles == More Pedestrian Deaths. Be it a minivan, Tesla, Truck, or whatever. Everyone in this thread finger-pointing at their perceived cultural enemies identities is straight up moronic
        randerson 5y ago
        If I had to hazard a guess, minivans look to have a higher center of gravity than SUVs, so it is easier to lose control. And for whatever reason Porsche/BMW/Mercedes have performance-oriented SUVs with sports-car-like handling and braking, whereas nobody seems to be doing this with minivans, so this may skew the results in favor of SUVs. Why trucks fare better than minivans though, I have no idea..
    - giantg2 5y ago
      I agree that minivans are very useful. There's also cost to consider. When I was looking, the basic minivan was at least $5k more than a basic work truck with extended cab.
  - louwrentius 5y ago
    Buy a used 18-wheeler. The mileage is not great but safety comes first right? And you won't even notice pedestrians, as a nice added bonus. Any reference to Mad Max - Fury Road is just coincidence. “If the government wanted people to drive safely, they’d mandate a spike in the middle of each steering wheel.” – Gordon Tullock May I invite you to migrate to Western-Europe? You can even do without a car if you want to.
    - caconym_ 5y ago
      I am actually a UK citizen, and you can bet I've been thinking about this possibility a lot in the last few years. (Though maybe the UK doesn't really count as "western Europe" anymore?)
      - louwrentius 5y ago
        Ok, thought it wasn’t as bad with regard to large cars over there as we don’t have those humongous trucks the US have. Or are you in the US? I would invite you to The Netherlands but the housing prices and rent are beyond insane… not sure that would work out.
  - nabilhat 5y ago
    It's a legitimately hard choice to base on real world statistics, more due to availability than anything else. IIHS does present some basic detail for occupants [0] [1], although only as recent as 4 years so statistics can have some time to build. That's okay, it's enough to put some perspective on new cars as well. It's at least a partially objective look at what safety by pickup vs sedan vs minivan vs whatever looks like for the people inside your vehicle. [0] https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-model https://www.iihs.org/ratings/driver-death-rates-by-make-and-... [1] pdf https://www.iihs.org/api/datastoredocument/status-report/pdf/55/2 https://www.iihs.org/api/datastoredocument/status-report/pdf...
- giantg2 5y ago
  There are plenty of people who get trucks and SUVs because they don't make large cars anymore. I had an 89 Caprice and it was like riding a couch down the highway. Look at a Taurus or Impala today and I barely fit. Edit: Why downvote? It's all true
  - jdavis703 5y ago
    The average American male is 5 foot 9 inches. I’m average height and easily fit in sub-compact cars. Yes some people need the extra space, but that’s a minority of drivers.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      Americans have gotten a lot fatter since the 80s and 90s and new car buyers have gotten a lot older. Getting in and out of a truck or SUV is worlds better for people who are overweight or who's joints have jumped the shark than getting down into a car.
      - jdavis703 5y ago
        Getting down or up in to a car shouldn’t matter. In order to get out the exact opposite action has to be performed.
        throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        Do you live in a world with spherical cows? The human body isn't that efficient. Getting down into a car if your body is old or packing a lot of weight requires exertion as does getting back out. And the average new car buyer probably has at least one of these or is married to someone who is.
      - kelnos 5y ago
        Maybe people would start to take better care of their health if they had to face pulling themselves out of a lower-to-the-ground car several times a day. SUVs and trucks address the symptom, not the disease.
- DFHippie 5y ago
  "Arms race" is very apt. For some reason "the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a monstrous truck is a good guy with a monstrous truck" is echoing in my head.
crooked-v 5y ago
For some visual comparisons of absurdly tall trucks: https://twitter.com/heatxdeath/status/1338979670629429249 https://twitter.com/heatxdeath/status/1338979670629429249 https://twitter.com/lockheedfartin/status/1338985486510075906 https://twitter.com/lockheedfartin/status/133898548651007590... https://twitter.com/Powflip/status/1055946188430757890 https://twitter.com/Powflip/status/1055946188430757890 Modern consumer trucks have hoods taller than some full-grown adults, let alone children.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  Smaller adults, for sure. I'm less than six feet tall and I can stand in front of my F250 and easily look down at the engine, and AFAIK it is one of the taller (if not the tallest) packages that Ford makes from the factory. That people modify their vehicles is without question, and the examples you gave look like they're all aftermarket lifts.
- throwawaysea 5y ago
  These are misleading, cherry picked examples: - Your first link is comparing a new lifted truck with aftermarket body mods to an older model of a stock SUV. - Your second link is comparing one of the smallest vehicles on the market, an older Mazda Miata, to a newer F-250 (a larger Ford "Super Duty" truck) with a lift, aftermarket wheels, and aftermarket tires. - Your third link is comparing a boat of unknown size to a full-size pickup truck, and even from the angle provided, the boat is bigger.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Why do people lift their trucks? Is it just for the looks? I cannot imagine that many people need to much offroad capability, they don't live on a farm.
    - throwawaysea 5y ago
      I have no idea why people lift their trucks to the extreme - I don't own a truck or understand the culture well, although I am familiar with the vehicles to some extent. My take is that most people who lift their trucks do it more for looks or status than for practical reasons. Having a small amount of lift and larger wheels with offroad tires probably does help with practical capability. You can see this with newer trucks that manufacturers produce in offroad trims (example https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/f150-tremor/ https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/f150-tremor/). But larger lifts are indeed impractical for offroad capability since they would alter your center of gravity and other aspects. Most serious offroad vehicles have good clearance but not extreme clearance, since they are also accounting for numerous other factors to give the vehicle reliability, safety, and offroad capability.
throwawaysea 5y ago
> Large vehicles, especially pickups with high hood heights, are a public health disaster This feels hyperbolic. I, and I imagine most people in the US, don't think our daily lives are a "disaster" and don't go outside in fear of vehicles, let alone large vehicles. We also derive a lot of utility from vehicles that makes our lives better. The choice to rely on cars or purchase a larger vehicle isn't made with solely risks and nothing positive on the balance. I feel the focus on vehicle-related fatalities is safetyism, given that there is only 1 fatality per 100 million miles traveled in the US.
- deleted 5y ago
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- version_five 5y ago
  You're apparently wrong, as you can see from the moderation. Failure to acknowledge the public health crisis that is large vehicles makes you a denier whose opinions need to be fact checked.
- kelnos 5y ago
  > We also derive a lot of utility from vehicles that makes our lives better. Most of the people I know who have purchased SUVs do so in large part because they believe that there are a lot of other SUVs on the road, and they will be more likely to survive a collision with an SUV if they themselves are in an SUV. Another big reason is that they have kids, and in reality want a minivan, but minivans aren't "cool", so they get a SUV instead. Not many people I know buy them for "sport utility" reasons. Maybe they drive it out to Tahoe two or three times a year (which doesn't require an SUV; a 4WD/AWD sedan is probably more stable on windy, winding, snowy roads anyway), but that hardly justifies the need. > there is only 1 fatality per 100 million miles traveled in the US Just because a number "feels" low to you, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to eliminate preventable deaths in order to drag that number even lower. For people whose activities are genuinely made easier, safer, better, and more comfortable with an SUV than a sedan, that's great; I have no quarrel with them. But my -- perhaps non-representative, admittedly -- experience with SUV owners is that they are buying them for the wrong reasons, which reduces safety for the rest of us.
- 5y ago
giantg2 5y ago
One should note that crash safety ratings found on cars generally compare collisions with vehicles of the same size and weight. So it can be misleading when you consider the larger vehicles. Also, what is your proposed solution?
- caconym_ 5y ago
  > One should note that crash safety ratings found on cars generally compare collisions with vehicles of the same size and weight. So it can be misleading when you consider the larger vehicles. How does this relate to my comment? Or is it just a general observation that trucks may be a greater danger to drivers and passengers in smaller vehicles than said vehicles' crash safety results would suggest? In that case, I would agree. > Also, what is your proposed solution? Some starting points off the top of my head: * Higher taxes/registration fees/etc on owning and operating large personal vehicles. * More stringent licensing requirements for operating large vehicles. * Restrictions on how large personal vehicles can be marketed, and/or cigarette-style disclaimers on ads. * Safety-focused regulation that effectively bans dangerous stock vehicle configurations. * Safety-focused regulation that effectively bans dangerous aftermarket modifications. And, crucially, enforcement thereof. I could go on.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    "Or is it just a general observation that trucks may be a greater danger to drivers and passengers in smaller vehicles than said vehicles' crash safety results would suggest?" Not only trucks, but yes. Even compact cars vs full size cars (eg Tesla S v Dodge Dart). There's only so much that engineering can do to compensate for mass discrepancies. "Higher taxes/registration fees/etc on owning and operating large personal vehicles." Most states do this already with the registration. Of course there's the second order taxation on the increased fuel usage. "More stringent licensing requirements for operating large vehicles." This should be done for all vehicles since the tests are a joke. Not to mention there's the possibility that the smaller cars involved in the crashes could be at fault (ie not all truck involved crashes are the fault of the truck and increased training just for the larger vehicle won't help them). "Restrictions on how large personal vehicles can be marketed, and/or cigarette-style disclaimers on ads." I don't really see the point of this. If anything the disclaimer would be promoting the safety for the prospective buyer, providing incentive to buy it. "Safety-focused regulation that effectively bans dangerous stock vehicle configurations." What would that look like beyond the current requirements? "Safety-focused regulation that effectively bans dangerous aftermarket modifications." I could see some utility in this. Is there any data to show the frequency with which non-illegal modifications where a contributing factor so that cost benefit analysis could be performed?
nabilhat 5y ago
There was an effort around 15 years ago to join all-parties death and major injury numbers on vehicle make and model (USA data only). I really wish I could find it now - it's a great example of how traffic safety data applicability can be improved, and it's a shame that public data doesn't support this without substantial amounts of work. I've made my own choices from this kind of ethical basis - I can't morally justify feeling like I've marginally increased my personal safety if doing so significantly increases the risk exposure to non-consenting bystanders.

Karrot_Kream 5y ago

America needs to set pedestrian and cyclist safety standards for motor vehicles. Europe has mandated survivability in crashes at certain speeds, but America continues to believe that the only relevant actor that needs safety in America's transportation network is the driver of their own vehicle. Here's an article from 2007 (!) [1] that talks about how America continues to try to focus on driver education, despite America consistently having some of the laxest drivers' license standards in the Western world. A recipe for a public health disaster indeed. No wonder Americans see anything other than a car as impractical; anyone other than a driver or a passenger is a safety afterthought. EDIT: Here's a more recent take on the same issue. Not much has changed apparently. [2] 1: https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2007/12/the-truth-about-europes-pedestrian-safety-legislation/ https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2007/12/the-truth-about-eu... 2: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/12/07/while-other-countries-mandate-safer-car-designs-for-pedestrians-america-does-nothing/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2017/12/07/while-other-countries...

giantg2 5y ago
There has been a push for pedestrian safety. Just look at the plastic bumpers. Didn't the Tesla truck fail its pedestrian test the way it was configured when unveiled? I agree that the driver tests are a joke. 90% of driving is making good decisions, yet there's not any real testing around this - even the driving test is not long enough to observe these behaviors. Instead it focuses on the other 10% of laws and physical ability, and pretty poorly at that (50 multiple choice questions yet hundreds or even thousands of driving related laws and regs).
- makeitdouble 5y ago
  TBF in places where driving is a core component of basic everyday life, raising the bar for getting a license will be a wildly unpopular and potentially life destroying measure. It should totally be done, but needs to come with/after a rework of what the alternatives are for people who’re not fit to drive.
  - giantg2 5y ago

ed25519FUUU 5y ago

It looks like the author has a link to this study as a PDF: http://www.justintyndall.com/uploads/2/8/5/5/28559839/tyndall_pedestrian.pdf http://www.justintyndall.com/uploads/2/8/5/5/28559839/tyndal...

throwawaysea 5y ago
Thanks for sharing the study - the original link just goes to a login screen for me. I haven't read the study fully but the main conclusion is that converting every light truck (SUV, pickup, minivan) in the country to a (smaller) car would save around 800 lives a year. That seems like a very small number in the grand scheme of things. The value of a life in the US used in mortality analyses is something like $7 million - which for 800 lives is $5.6B. The market for light trucks is far bigger than that - even just one model like the F-150 generates something like $50B in revenue a year. What this means is that people are deriving vastly more value from the presence of light trucks than the loss we see from them.

simonebrunozzi 5y ago

Brasilia has a much higher number of pedestrian deaths compared to similar cities in Brazil, or other parts of the world. Why? Its (terrible) design. Do not forget that city design has a huge impact on pedestrian deaths. In essence: larger roads, more deaths. Fewer deaths in old cities, because of narrower streets from past centuries.

kelnos 5y ago
Sure, but you can compare deaths in a city from 30 years ago, when larger vehicles were less common, to deaths today, in that same city, when they are more common.

deleted 5y ago

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rytcio 5y ago

The reason why US cars are so big are because of recent (within the last decade) safety standards. Cars could be much smaller and more efficient, but because of safety standards...they're massive now.

s0rce 5y ago
The Hyundai Kona is tiny (for a 2021 vehicle at least) and has really good safety ratings https://www.iihs.org/ratings/vehicle/hyundai/kona-4-door-suv/2021 https://www.iihs.org/ratings/vehicle/hyundai/kona-4-door-suv...
- giantg2 5y ago
  Don't forget, those safety ratings are against similar size and weight vehicles. So I can see this as being true that safety regulations may not be the biggest contributor, but overall safety may be (eg designing for impacts with larger vehicles).
JKCalhoun 5y ago
MazdaMX-5sayswhat?
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
I dunno why this got downvoted. The trend of increased size and weight for a static amount of interior space (or decreased interior space for a given size/weight) is well known and documented.
avianlyric 5y ago
EU safety standards were originally derived from US standards, and yet our cars aren’t even close to the monstrosities you have riding around in the US.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  Europeans are much, much more comfortable using taxes to drive policy.

jwilber 5y ago

For the overwhelmingly majority of owners, large trucks are completely unnecessary. Non-owners effectively subsidize them when you factor in the huge negative externalities they impose, including on the environment, the wear and tear on roads, the public safety hazards, production opportunity costs, etc. This thread summarizes things well: https://twitter.com/PostCultRev/status/1419689420714700805?s=20 https://twitter.com/PostCultRev/status/1419689420714700805?s...

rootusrootus 5y ago
> For the overwhelmingly majority of owners, large trucks are completely unnecessary. How do you propose to quantify "unnecessary"? And what would your solution be?
- jwilber 5y ago
  Unnecessary may simply be the % of use by the truck dedicated to just commuting, where that % is so high as to not justify the negative externalities imposed by such a vehicle. Pretty standard stuff in actuarial work. Anecdotally, my compact, hatchback Kia Rio and can fit four +9ft surfboards just fine. A solution would be taxing larger vehicles to take into account the externalities they create, or do like myself and purchase a safer vehicle that can load just as easily. If you’re not moving heavy equipment, you don’t need a big truck. If you are, treat it like a fork-list: assign a license.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    Most states already have higher registration taxes. Plus you have second order taxes like paying more fuel tax because they are less efficient. "If you’re not moving heavy equipment, you don’t need a big truck. If you are, treat it like a fork-list: assign a license." Do you mean pickups or actual big trucks? Big trucks do require different license classes.
- asdff 5y ago
  Is there one person in the cab? Is the bed empty? Then its unnecessary. You could quantify this unnecessary factor explicitly, divide the weight of persons+cargo by the weight of the vehicle and we could call the resulting ratio "ridiculousness" with a certain threshold. If I really need to do truck stuff one day, I rent one from the hardware store.

waiseristy 5y ago

Interesting data, Minivans are the real boogyman. Maybe this has to do with the demographics of the drivers / passengers? Also important to point out, a 2021 Oddesy or Sienna weighs within 100-200 lbs of an F150 depending on the trim level.

captainoats 5y ago

https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedes... has a lot of interesting statistics on this matter. Seems like the largest unique cohorts at risk are intoxicated people in urban areas at night and the elderly. Not sure blaming truck and SUV design is the most effective solution to this problem as it seems mental status is a big player here.

LatteLazy 5y ago
You can change truck/suv design. You can't stop people in cities havibg a drink or getting old...