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Yet the massive trucks that obstruct the driver's vision to pedestrians, kids on bikes, and everything else are experiencing YoY growth. The Challenger and Cha

Yet the massive trucks that obstruct the driver's vision to pedestrians, kids on bikes, and everything else are experiencing YoY growth. The Challenger and Charger are terrible in terms of fuel efficiency but safer to people as drivers can see more of what's in front of them: >Researchers at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) analyzed the details of 14,000 fatal pedestrian crashes, and they found that SUVs were twice as likely as cars to be making a left turn when the crash happened. https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/suv-and-pickup-truck-drivers-more-likely-to-hit-pedestrians-a7444108492/ https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/suv-and-pickup-tr...

ericmay 4y ago
Just wait until those trucks are electric too and can accelerate as fast or faster than current electric cars. But for some reason we don't care about car crashes and people getting run over and we keep designing highways and roads specifically to accelerate vehicles next to regular people and slower moving modes of transit and we keep locking people in their homes unless they drive 70 mph with near-instant acceleration to go half a mile to the grocery store to get a loaf of bread.
- zekrioca 4y ago
- xnx 4y ago
  There's a terrifying race between cars getting bigger/heavier/faster while being piloted by every-more distracted drivers, and autonomous driving technology. I'm hoping that those at Waymo are making the right tradeoffs between their own product's safety and the danger of not having a better-than-human driving system like theirs more widely deployed.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  The EV hummer is already supercar acceleration that the Charger and Challenger couldn't beat. And it's 9000 lbs
  - in3d 4y ago
    The Challenger is in 10s in 1/4 mile times, the EV Hummer is in 11s.
    - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
      0-60 is 3.4s for challenger, 3s or less for the hummer.
      - in3d 4y ago
        1/4 mile became the standard measure for a good reason. 0-60 is just as much a measure of traction as it is of acceleration and you can go to a drag strip and test your car against others legally in 1/4 mile.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  - ericmay 4y ago
    Nobody is calling for a ban on trucks. In fact, trucks are awesome and needed by all kinds of people. We’re asking to stop enforcing truck way of life with endless, unaffordable highway expansion and focusing on truck development and transit at the expense of everything else. If you spent less time feeling threatened and more time getting other people off the road so that they can walk, bike, or take public transit such as buses and street cars your own experience owning a truck and using it for your activities would be enhanced. It’s a mistake to believe that trucks are at odds with proper transit. In addition, the main issue w.r.t visibility here isn’t limited to trucks. But given that we make vehicles bigger and faster and we design highways that encourage faster transit we inevitably cause more deaths and destruction and a net expense on society that can be avoided by getting more people off the road and slowing traffic way down except on interstate highways between cities. It also doesn’t make sense to ban pedestrians or people walking, given that we live on Earth.
  - InitialLastName 4y ago
    Most non-extreme people are just calling for their societies to stop subsidizing your truck and truck-related way of life, but I can definitely see how the very slight degradation of an extraordinarily privileged position would feel like an assault on the core of your being.
- wing-_-nuts 4y ago
  I don't hate on the acceleration. Being able to quickly get up to speed and slot yourself safely into traffic is important. EVs have taken quite a while to shake off the slowpoke penalty box. If we can make EVs sexy by making them quick, so much the better. Visibility is an issue, but it's always been an issue (camaro, I'm looking at you!). We need better sensors to help protect people. We also need separated bike lanes and safer pedestrian infrastructure. The cars have never been the issue here, it's the single minded focus on car centric infrastructure that's killing people.
  - brodouevencode 4y ago
    So far this seems to be the only reasonable reply in this thread. There's a lot of "big truck bad" energy here. Like I said elsewhere - it's the driver. The vehicle doesn't move without the driver.
    - rnk 4y ago
      EV trucks are here now and they are fast. Both the F150-EV and the Rivian R1T are very fast because of their electric drive trains. I'm hoping not to see an increase in pedestrian accidents but time will tell.
      - ericmay 4y ago
        > I'm hoping not to see an increase in pedestrian accidents but time will tell. You will because we're putting supercars into the hands of people who simply cannot handle them and we obscure their line of sight and we design roads and highways for speed and to not have to pay attention to anything except the car in front of you also moving at a high rate of speed. Also let's call this what it is, which is an increase in people being ran over, and cars crashing into each other and disfiguring people for life for no good reason. Calling it an "accident" like spilling milk instead of running over someone and their intestines spilling into the street really downplays how serious of a problem car crashes and running over people is.
        4y ago
brodouevencode 4y ago
Yes, but.... It's the driver. It's not the vehicle. Some of us have driven large trucks our entire lives without incident. You put a small person in a large Tahoe and there's an exponential decrease in visibility, coupled with never having driven such a large vehicle before and you get some bad statistics. For proof go to any grocery store during peak hours and you're very likely to see two large vehicles side by side where one is parked nicely between the lines and the other is hanging over.
- rconti 4y ago
  It's both.
kennend3 4y ago
I ride my bike a fair bit and can you called it. Any time i am passed dangerously close it is ALWAYS a short-box pickup. One road I frequent is used by large commercial trucks (dump trucks). These guys are professional, and move way over giving me a LOT of space. oddly enough, the pickup drivers watch the dump trucks do this, and yet refuse to move over even slightly? i'm not sure what it is about people in pickups, but they need to do a better job educating the drivers as well. Like seriously, if you watched a dump truck move, why were you unable to do this as well? it isn't just about "visibility" but there seems to be some attitude problems around pickup truck drivers. If you see a pickup with some company logo, 90% chance they will be decent and give you space. You see someone in their "pavement princess" all washed and polished, no F'ing way they will move over.
- SauciestGNU 4y ago
  I can't agree with this enough, and I think it has to do with dueling cultural values. Especially because I live in a very purple area. My interpretation is that the pickup drivers endanger my life to "own the libs" (people who ride bicycles). What's more is that most of the trucks that act in this way have dealership license plate frames or stickers from the outlying rural communities, so they're coming into the community where I live and endangering my safety out of what I assume is some misguided hatred of environmentally friendly transportation.
  - kennend3 4y ago
    Those short-box pickups and their drivers are terrible (and it is almost always a short-box truck with its micro 4-foot box?) My dad was in the trades and so he owned a pickup (needed for its towing capacity). It was a "proper" pickup with an 8 foot box as well. He built kitchens and needed a large trailer to bring the cabinets to the customers house and install them. The 8 foot box allowed him to load 4x8's into the back without the trailer if needed. I was forced to drive a pickup as well given I lived there and at the time it was the only car he had (later he got a compact car). I don't have any issues with pickups, they are a valuable tool for many in the trades. when i drove his pickup i moved over, it was a very simple thing to do and was basic human decency. The problem is the weekend-warrior types. I will never understand why they feel a need to do the things they do. Even buying these 4-foot box trucks makes little sense. I see them at Lowes/HomeDepot from time to time struggling to get 2x4x8's into the back while i can easily load 2x10x12's into my compact Hyundai Elantra and still close the trunk? like what did you get the truck for? There was a time you were looked down upon for driving a pickup (blue collar worker) now they seem to be some sort of status symbol?

ericmay 4y ago

Just wait until those trucks are electric too and can accelerate as fast or faster than current electric cars. But for some reason we don't care about car crashes and people getting run over and we keep designing highways and roads specifically to accelerate vehicles next to regular people and slower moving modes of transit and we keep locking people in their homes unless they drive 70 mph with near-instant acceleration to go half a mile to the grocery store to get a loaf of bread.

zekrioca 4y ago
xnx 4y ago
There's a terrifying race between cars getting bigger/heavier/faster while being piloted by every-more distracted drivers, and autonomous driving technology. I'm hoping that those at Waymo are making the right tradeoffs between their own product's safety and the danger of not having a better-than-human driving system like theirs more widely deployed.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
The EV hummer is already supercar acceleration that the Charger and Challenger couldn't beat. And it's 9000 lbs
- in3d 4y ago
  The Challenger is in 10s in 1/4 mile times, the EV Hummer is in 11s.
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    0-60 is 3.4s for challenger, 3s or less for the hummer.
    - in3d 4y ago
      1/4 mile became the standard measure for a good reason. 0-60 is just as much a measure of traction as it is of acceleration and you can go to a drag strip and test your car against others legally in 1/4 mile.
phpisthebest 4y ago
- ericmay 4y ago
  Nobody is calling for a ban on trucks. In fact, trucks are awesome and needed by all kinds of people. We’re asking to stop enforcing truck way of life with endless, unaffordable highway expansion and focusing on truck development and transit at the expense of everything else. If you spent less time feeling threatened and more time getting other people off the road so that they can walk, bike, or take public transit such as buses and street cars your own experience owning a truck and using it for your activities would be enhanced. It’s a mistake to believe that trucks are at odds with proper transit. In addition, the main issue w.r.t visibility here isn’t limited to trucks. But given that we make vehicles bigger and faster and we design highways that encourage faster transit we inevitably cause more deaths and destruction and a net expense on society that can be avoided by getting more people off the road and slowing traffic way down except on interstate highways between cities. It also doesn’t make sense to ban pedestrians or people walking, given that we live on Earth.
- InitialLastName 4y ago
  Most non-extreme people are just calling for their societies to stop subsidizing your truck and truck-related way of life, but I can definitely see how the very slight degradation of an extraordinarily privileged position would feel like an assault on the core of your being.
wing-_-nuts 4y ago
I don't hate on the acceleration. Being able to quickly get up to speed and slot yourself safely into traffic is important. EVs have taken quite a while to shake off the slowpoke penalty box. If we can make EVs sexy by making them quick, so much the better. Visibility is an issue, but it's always been an issue (camaro, I'm looking at you!). We need better sensors to help protect people. We also need separated bike lanes and safer pedestrian infrastructure. The cars have never been the issue here, it's the single minded focus on car centric infrastructure that's killing people.
- brodouevencode 4y ago
  So far this seems to be the only reasonable reply in this thread. There's a lot of "big truck bad" energy here. Like I said elsewhere - it's the driver. The vehicle doesn't move without the driver.
  - rnk 4y ago
    EV trucks are here now and they are fast. Both the F150-EV and the Rivian R1T are very fast because of their electric drive trains. I'm hoping not to see an increase in pedestrian accidents but time will tell.
    - ericmay 4y ago
      > I'm hoping not to see an increase in pedestrian accidents but time will tell. You will because we're putting supercars into the hands of people who simply cannot handle them and we obscure their line of sight and we design roads and highways for speed and to not have to pay attention to anything except the car in front of you also moving at a high rate of speed. Also let's call this what it is, which is an increase in people being ran over, and cars crashing into each other and disfiguring people for life for no good reason. Calling it an "accident" like spilling milk instead of running over someone and their intestines spilling into the street really downplays how serious of a problem car crashes and running over people is.
      - 4y ago

brodouevencode 4y ago

Yes, but.... It's the driver. It's not the vehicle. Some of us have driven large trucks our entire lives without incident. You put a small person in a large Tahoe and there's an exponential decrease in visibility, coupled with never having driven such a large vehicle before and you get some bad statistics. For proof go to any grocery store during peak hours and you're very likely to see two large vehicles side by side where one is parked nicely between the lines and the other is hanging over.

rconti 4y ago
It's both.

kennend3 4y ago

I ride my bike a fair bit and can you called it. Any time i am passed dangerously close it is ALWAYS a short-box pickup. One road I frequent is used by large commercial trucks (dump trucks). These guys are professional, and move way over giving me a LOT of space. oddly enough, the pickup drivers watch the dump trucks do this, and yet refuse to move over even slightly? i'm not sure what it is about people in pickups, but they need to do a better job educating the drivers as well. Like seriously, if you watched a dump truck move, why were you unable to do this as well? it isn't just about "visibility" but there seems to be some attitude problems around pickup truck drivers. If you see a pickup with some company logo, 90% chance they will be decent and give you space. You see someone in their "pavement princess" all washed and polished, no F'ing way they will move over.

SauciestGNU 4y ago
I can't agree with this enough, and I think it has to do with dueling cultural values. Especially because I live in a very purple area. My interpretation is that the pickup drivers endanger my life to "own the libs" (people who ride bicycles). What's more is that most of the trucks that act in this way have dealership license plate frames or stickers from the outlying rural communities, so they're coming into the community where I live and endangering my safety out of what I assume is some misguided hatred of environmentally friendly transportation.
- kennend3 4y ago
  Those short-box pickups and their drivers are terrible (and it is almost always a short-box truck with its micro 4-foot box?) My dad was in the trades and so he owned a pickup (needed for its towing capacity). It was a "proper" pickup with an 8 foot box as well. He built kitchens and needed a large trailer to bring the cabinets to the customers house and install them. The 8 foot box allowed him to load 4x8's into the back without the trailer if needed. I was forced to drive a pickup as well given I lived there and at the time it was the only car he had (later he got a compact car). I don't have any issues with pickups, they are a valuable tool for many in the trades. when i drove his pickup i moved over, it was a very simple thing to do and was basic human decency. The problem is the weekend-warrior types. I will never understand why they feel a need to do the things they do. Even buying these 4-foot box trucks makes little sense. I see them at Lowes/HomeDepot from time to time struggling to get 2x4x8's into the back while i can easily load 2x10x12's into my compact Hyundai Elantra and still close the trunk? like what did you get the truck for? There was a time you were looked down upon for driving a pickup (blue collar worker) now they seem to be some sort of status symbol?