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These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us

168 points by amai 4y ago

vvpan 4y ago
I suspect that the lack of comments means that most people agree with the sentiment but put off watching the video for later. If true - it says something about the relative ease of consumption of textual content. I follow a political scientist who says she never views videos (of official statements for example) because the transcripts are so much more efficient, and makes sure to post transcripts of her video appearances. EDIT: and oh yeah, hate the goddam trucks of course.
- buzzert 4y ago
  GPT-4 summary, since I also found the narrator annoying and went straight to the transcript: > The growth of SUVs and light trucks presents a challenge to creating walkable cities due to their size, poor visibility, and negative impact on safety and the environment. The popularity of these vehicles has been driven by marketing from the auto industry, which has promoted their supposed safety and versatility. However, their size and design make them more dangerous for pedestrians and other road users, and they contribute significantly to carbon emissions. Cities need to take steps to regulate SUVs and light trucks, such as taxing them by weight, limiting vehicles with high bumpers, and increasing fees for parking permits and insurance.
  - throwwwaway69 4y ago
    I feel like Youtube vidoes are a massively annoying format for digesting information. It's so slow compared to text and it's full of fillers and introductions and flowery language. I'm surprised this is so upvoted on HN, especially because in my brief scanning the video format doesn't add anything
    - kawfey 4y ago
      I typically watch at 1.75x speed, sometimes 2x. Same (sometimes faster) for podcasts. Of course there’s a one sentence bottom line to a majority of YouTube content, but I appreciate the artform, adjacent color commentary, and evidence-based rigor from these higher quality creators. Albeit at a ridiculous speed lol.
- projektfu 4y ago
  Yep, I even gave the video a chance but I wasn't going to sit through the whole thing. Of course, it was also preaching to the choir.
- CalRobert 4y ago
  I watched this video before it showed up here. I am delighted to see it make the front page of HN (though Slaughter already has plenty of notoriety) and upvoted without saying much, because the urbanism fight is just... tiring. At least when talking to North Americans.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    Maybe the urbanism fight is tiring because people realize what they would have to give up in order to achieve the urbanist vision -- especially their trucks and SUVs. Selling a positive vision rather than shaming people and trying to take things away from them would help.
    - beej71 4y ago
      But what if the SUV is the positive vision being sold? Do SUV owners want to live in a world where they drive smaller cars?
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > I suspect that the lack of comments means that most people agree with the sentiment but put off watching the video for later This was me. Video is rather hard for me, because I need to be in the right time and place for it.
- munchler 4y ago
  It depends on the context. When I’m cruising HN, I have no interest in watching a video. When I’m watching TV, the same video might be perfect.
- SergeAx 4y ago
  I am trying to avoid videos and podcasts too. But it is an uphill battle. Text, while easier to produce, would give the platform only 10 minutes of engagement at best instead of 30, and won't generate comparable number of subscriptions. Also text is easier to copy and harder to monetize. So, there is either zero or a negative incentive for authors to go text.
- mikrotikker 4y ago
  I love trucks. They're a lot of fun to drive (I have two 1990 JDM SUV for offroad camping. Especially to modify and add things like CB radios for convoys, bull bars for protection from trees and assholes who won't let you merge. My favourite modification was a turbo. At night in the bush, navigating some track, the turbo diesel whistle sounds so good, and gives more torque for the mud. I think it's quite weird to hate a type of vehicle and want to prevent other people from accessing it. Just live and let live.
  - beej71 4y ago
    I'm good with live and let live. But my SO's Honda Fit was just demolished by a modern truck who "didn't see her" despite having a clear line of sight down the road--but due to the relative slope, I suspect the Fit was obscured by the truck hood. She was in pain for 6 weeks. So where is live and let live?
  - sinistersnare 4y ago
    Maybe you should watch the video and realize that it can't be live and let live. By you living with your truck, we die.
    - mikrotikker 4y ago
      Yea, no, I challenge the narrative pushed in the video as flawed at best.
  - vvpan 4y ago
    Well I'll be first to admit that my thing against trucks is a bit of knee jerk. To me they are big, loud, scary and expensive. I'm uncomfortable being around roads full of trucks, especially biking. Yet I know that a Mazda Miata will kill be just as well. And I can see the utility in a lot of situations. I've looked at them for camping in wilderness of western US too, I'll be honest, but realized that I would not be able to stretch out in any of them and quickly passed. Yet at the same time I just moved to a little city that identifies hard (to an unhealthy degree imho) with cowboy and military culture and it seems most vehicles are trucks. I honestly think this contributes to this city being universally looked down upon and ridiculed. Although the symbolism of the truck in this context is probably tightly enmashed with the real physical properties. Utility depends on context. Emotions matter. Urbanism consists of emotional responses. Camping in wilderness is different.
ChadNauseam 4y ago
I haven't watched the video yet, but I assume it's going to be about how new, giant trucks are more deadly to pedestrians. I've heard it said, but not been able to verify, that the rise in these giant trucks is caused by the EPA having less-strict MPG requirements for heavier vehicles. Does anyone know more about this?
- XorNot 4y ago
  It's also to do with safety equipment: it's basically the same stuff whether you build a sedan or a truck, so it costs the same to put in. But perceptually the consumer gets "more cat" for their money by buying a bigger vehicle since the safety gear is largely a fixed cost.
- dualboot 4y ago
  They're more deadly to anything that encounters them in an accident that is smaller than them.
  - darth_avocado 4y ago
    I was driving a hatchback in 2015 and was rear ended by a truck at an intersection when I slowed down for the amber light while the truck didn’t. I ended up in the middle of the intersection, with traffic just starting to go on both sides. The worst part, the back of the car was boxed in so far, that it almost touched the driver’s seat. Thankfully no one was sitting behind me. The truck on the other hand had a after market metal guard in front of it, which meant it had little damage beyond the guard needing a paint job. Even the headlights were intact. I remember thinking that I’ll never want to drive anything smaller than a truck if I want to drive in America. It took my 7 years before I switched back to a sedan, thanks to Tesla M3.
    - mikrotikker 4y ago
      Shit that sucks. I was rear ended by a station wagon in my my truck when I slowed down at a give way an he didn't. I'm 2300kgs so I hardly moved. He got a nice dent in his bumper from my towbar. Maybe you should get a truck? (I'm not in America)
geocrasher 4y ago
Don't hate SUV's. Don't hate trucks. If you're going to have disdain, have it for the people who drive them as status symbols or as compensation for... things. I own one vehicle, and it is an old SUV. I enjoy it because it's borderline a classic vehicle but it's also extremely economical for my use case. My use case does not factor in MPG. Plus, it's cool. The only thing a video called "These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us" is going to do is get a bunch of people who dislike SUV's to agree with it. And that's fine. Any argument can be true if you want it bad enough, I guess.
- f_devd 4y ago
  There are other good arguments for disliking SUVs compared to all other consumer cars like crash incompatibly & bad vision for 'low' objects (children, other cars).
- kylehotchkiss 4y ago
  I also drive a SUV and find it alarming how much bigger a lifted F250/F350 next to me is. The way they drive can be pretty appalling... full throttle just to pass, switch 3 lanes without looking, intensionally cutting off small cars (2 things I saw in the past week!) I can't imagine how intimidating that would be in a sedan. Which I think is the point of lifting a huge truck?
  - geocrasher 4y ago
    And this is kind of my point. BroMobiles != SUV's
  - twblalock 4y ago
    Plenty of people in Dodge Chargers behave the same way. Idiots are going to be idiots no matter what they drive.
- ryeights 4y ago
  These things can all be true at the same time: * SUVs are useful tools that can serve a real purpose * Even within the same vehicle classes, cars are getting bigger and heavier in the name of safety and consumer preferences. This is disastrous for the safety of pedestrians and drivers of smaller vehicles * Most people will never take their SUVs/trucks off-road, or use them for blue collar-type work, or tow anything more than once a year, for which they could easily rent a vehicle * Thus, barring safety concerns (which are themselves exacerbated by the prevalence of massive vehicles on the roads) or an opportunistic desire for more interior space, most people would be equally well served by smaller cars. * However, people are not buying smaller cars. This has the effect of “literally killing” sharply increasing numbers of pedestrians every year, and indirectly killing countless others through increased air pollution and greenhouse gas effects.
VoodooJuJu 4y ago
I can't listen to videos like this where the narrator uses emotional affectations in a scripted report. >https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo?t=38 https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo?t=38 >They're just... BAD for cities. Really bad. >https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo?t=81 https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo?t=81 >We're constantly being told that the astronomical growth in the average size of motor vehicles would infringe on the """FREEDOMS""" of people to do whatever they want. It's cringe, unnatural, and distracts from the message. Present the logic of your argument in a neutral manner and leave it to the listener for emotional interpretation - don't force it.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  The guy from the channel doesn't really care about seeming cringe or making videos for people who buy these trucks and SUVs. His audience is people who already agree we need to make change and his content is about providing points, examples of what is wrong, ways it can be improved, and data to back it up.
  - justinator 4y ago
    It's refreshing isn't it? "Seeming cringe" only happens if you already suffer from "Car Brain", which I think is best defined as thinking of the car itself as having inalienable rights, much like that of a human being.
    - mikrotikker 4y ago
      Just seems like stealing peoples joy. Suffer from "car brain" is a great way to write off and invalidate the opinions of a large swathe of people who enjoy or have cars as a hobby. I bet you'd crack the shits if people started talking about banning GPUs cos they use too much power and anyway, they're only used to play games.
  - mardifoufs 4y ago
    Or the guy is just clickbaiting and knows that outrage sells on youtube.
- 4y ago
atrettel 4y ago
I agree with the video's thesis that large trucks and SUVs are unsafe to pedestrians, children, and other drivers even, but the end of the video focuses on trying to change regulations to make these kind of vehicles safer in many respects. The issue is that, at least in the United States, there are so many of these large trucks and SUVs on the road, that even if some safer regulations come in, these vehicles are already on the road in large numbers. In my neighborhood alone, there are more large trucks and SUVs than cars. I wish that the video concentrated more on things that you can do to protect yourself or others from large trucks and SUVs. I have been hit by a car while cycling before, and it was no fun, but I did at least roll up the hood as described in the video. That will not happen for one of these large vehicles. I try to concentrate on positive things that I can at least control for in cases like these, but I honestly am drawing a blank. Any ideas?
- mslate 4y ago
  We could take these vehicles off the road. They have to be registered with the state department of motor vehicles. Either charge them a differentially higher vehicle registration fee, or ban them outright. Another front is questioning whether car insurance rates reflect the real legal liability that drivers of these vehicles incur? If they truly kill kids then shouldn't their car insurance rates be exorbitantly higher?
  - chongli 4y ago
    We could take these vehicles off the road. That’s a political non-starter in the U.S. You’d have better luck taking away personal firearms.
    - justinator 4y ago
      I don't disagree with you, but there is nothing in the Constitution that protects one's right to own and drive a car (there is for owning firearms). But car ownership is seen as a right, rather than a privilege, and that comes with it a hugely entrenched feeling of entitlement, privilege, and exceptionalism. A way to feel this is to go car-free for a week in the US. Some places are easier than others. But compare this to going car-free for a week in Europe. It will probably be a much different experience for most places in Europe, as compared to the US.
throw0101b 4y ago
The video points to this article ("Pickup Trucks: From Workhorse to Joyride") that was discussed a little while ago: > But during those 40 years, pickups have changed significantly. They’ve become bigger, heavier and more tricked out, and they’ve transformed from workhorse vehicles to family cruisers. * https://www.axios.com/ford-pickup-trucks-history https://www.axios.com/ford-pickup-trucks-history * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35046151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35046151 The top-selling vehicle in 2022 was the Ford F-150; top selling vehicle in 1982 was Ford Escort: I'm having a hard time believing that people's hauling needs have changed in the intervening decades to rationally justify the sales figures.
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  The very perplexing thing is that these trucks keep getting bigger without any significant increase in hauling or seating capacity. I have an occasional driver 2003 Silverado for materials pickup and dump runs. It is a fullsize pickup for its year. 2022 Silverados and F250s completely dwarf it. Yet they have the same seating capacity and bed length. It's totally bizarre. And IMO, they're uglier to boot with their Big Mac looking hamburger ass grills.
  - ryeights 4y ago
    Blame the IIHS. Safety ratings give literally zero concern to the possible effects to pedestrians of a collision, no concern to visibility, and only minimal concern to the effects on the driver on the other side of the collision. It’s a full-on arms race of bulkier frames, huge crumple zones, and more mass.
  - thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > The very perplexing thing is that these trucks keep getting bigger without any significant increase in hauling or seating capacity. That's not just trucks. My parents have a recent Hyundai Ioniq. The car is fat and can have trouble fitting into parking spaces. But there's no benefit; the extra width seems to have gone into providing empty space between the interior seats and the doors. So the usable part of the interior is just as narrow as ever, but it's harder to maneuver and you have to unbuckle and lean way the hell out of your window to interact with toll booths / parking garage machines / etc. Who wants this?
stopping 4y ago
Over the years my opinion on light trucks has shifted from ambivalence to seething resentment. The main reason is that I now live in an area where large vehicles have become increasingly disruptive to normal living: 1) Side streets that prioritize street parking (e.g. streets with multi-family housing) mean that a poorly-parked truck is literally impossible to see around when you're driving a smaller vehicle. Exiting an apartment driveway is frequently a precarious maneuver when you can't clearly see traffic coming in one or both directions. Heaven forbid there's a bicyclist obstructed from view. 2) Headlight elevation blinds other drivers, especially those in shorter vehicles. If you're being blinded from behind at night, you have to slow down to let them pass, or else your mirrors become useless or even actively dangerous to look at. 3) Blind spots in newer light trucks are horrendously large, as indicated in the video. Many drivers are not aware of the blind spot to the front-right side of the cab and are at risk of being PITed by an inattentive driver changing lanes into them. 4) Echoing the point about parking infrastructure. Being unable to park these sorts of vehicles in standard spaces and garages means that many of these end up parked on the street where inconvenience to other drivers is maximized. The only way a driver can completely mitigate these problems is to simply join in the Bigger Vehicle arms race, to the detriment of all other drivers and pedestrians.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I totally agree. These trucks have started to make me actively angry.
  - mikrotikker 4y ago
    You shouldn't let it affect you. I would advise you to look into meditation, or at the least cannabis.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  Typical American went to France/Nice for a week. It is astonishing how many more small cars can fit and move around roads than a bunch of SUVs. The "personal space" of an SUV is gigantic, while driving around in small cars you have a vastly better sense of the road and people around you. If everyone is driving cars, your visibility of the road and traffic is far better because you can see through the windshields of cars in front of you. AND THOSE GODDAMN HEADLIGHTS. When the human race was first getting mainstream education on global warming in the late 1990s, the United States of America collectively decided to basically double the weight of its vehicles, and squander engineering wonders that vastly increased the fuel economy of vehicles. If the demand and desire for these is really so great, slap a $10,000 surcharge + $1,000/year fee on their ownership and redirect all of it to BEVs and alt energy.
SecurityMinded 4y ago
Idiotic utopia, geared towards crowded European cities. In the US, it is moronic idea at best. I'd rather be in the driver seat of that truck and not die as a result of an accident. Trucks are not stupid. They are useful vehicles if you live in Rural places. What is stupid is the creator of this video.
- topaz0 4y ago
  I'd rather have nobody die as a result of preventing that accident.
- Fauntleroy 4y ago
  Sounds like something you should tell the creator of the video in a youtube comment
- Mordisquitos 4y ago
  I'd rather not kill my kid in my driveway with my truck, but to each his own.
- desperate 4y ago
  Did you watch the video? The author has nothing against trucks themselves, it's SUVs (light trucks) in suburbia and cities that he argues is the problem. Specifically, the many cases where people never even use the capabilities of the larger car (off roading, towing, stuffing it full of shit) and instead the choice of a larger car becomes an overall negative for society (more dangerous for the other guy in any collision, harder to see around, harder to see kids or pets as the driver, headlights more blinding to oncoming traffic die to their greater elevation). Anyhow, you sound very angry and closed minded, maybe give other opinions a chance, you don't have to agree but you also don't have to be an ass about it
twblalock 4y ago
This is just culture war dreck dressed up as an argument. The phrase `pathetic suburbanites` even appears in the video description. The anti-truck stuff is really a proxy for hating a lifestyle and the people who live it. It's funny to see how people who hate trucks are now carping about things like parking space now that electric trucks make gas mileage and emissions irrelevant. It's not wrong to like trucks.
- irrelative 4y ago
  I agree it's not wrong to like trucks, and that hating on the owners is a cheap shot. I also think that this video points out the externalities that trucks impose. In a rational society, one would expect the government to address these externalities, but here we are.
  - twblalock 4y ago
    It's not the government's job to fix everything or engineer a perfect society, and personal choice and freedom matter too. This YouTuber, like many other people who favor a denser urban lifestyle, looks down on people who disagree with him and wants the government to coerce them into living the way he wants them to. "Externalities" are just an excuse for that, and even if those externalities were removed he would find other justifications because the root cause is that he doesn't like the people who prefer a different lifestyle than him.
    - gizmo 4y ago
      The video goes over all the arguments. Trucks have bad visibility, encourage reckless driving, and wreck smaller cars/pedestrians during collisions. This isn't "hating", these are serious problems. Trucks are popular specifically because of government meddling. Importing smaller and cheaper transport vehicles like vans is impossible because of import fees. Trucks also don't have to adhere to emissions and crash safety regulations which means trucks are cheap relative to cars. If we leveled the regulatory playing field trucks wouldn't be nearly as popular.
justinator 4y ago
I'm just some wannabe anarcho cyclist, so my point of view is certainly biased, but these types of trucks are insanity, in my opinion.
ryeights 4y ago
US import restrictions and tariffs also contribute to this problem… I would sell my left pinky toe to be able to buy a VW Multivan stateside. A practical 7 seater that can fit adult passengers in the third row, in a Toyota Camry-size package. Meanwhile, in the US, station wagons are completely dead, “mini”vans are nearly a foot longer than the Multivan and are larger than the fullsize cargo vans of yore, and adult-friendly 3 row SUVs are even larger than that. Automakers are basically coercing consumers into upsizing.
- ascagnel_ 4y ago
  > Meanwhile, in the US, station wagons are completely dead, In the US, seemingly everything but the SUV is dead. I bought a car in 2021 after having a kid, and it was either a “crossover” (SUV body on a smaller frame) or a minivan if you wanted a five-door/hatchback. I occasionally kick myself for giving up my Fiesta; that thing was wonderful in US cities.
  - maxerickson 4y ago
    Japanese hatchbacks are pretty comparable to the Fiesta.
oaththrowaway 4y ago
I live in a rural area and own a truck. I guess I'm the devil?
- JohnFen 4y ago
  If you need a truck to do truck things, no. If you use a truck as a regular passenger vehicle, maybe.
  - oaththrowaway 4y ago
    What's the threshold where me owning a truck is okay to you? 10% "truck" things? 50%?
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      Oh, please. I don't even really have a beef with trucks used in the countryside. My main beef is their use in the city as commuting vehicles, where the vast majority of them have never, and will never, be used as a truck. In that setting, trucks are a nuisance and danger to everyone else without any rational reason for being.
redmorphium 4y ago
I drive a pickup truck. The reason is for my own safety & my passengers' safety. I will not compromise on this. Out there it's an arms race, and it's in your best interest to pick the bulkiest suit of armor.
- Mordisquitos 4y ago
  What makes you think it is safer?
- koala_man 4y ago
  > I will not compromise on this. Will you collaborate on this? Help ban heavier vehicles for everyone?
- lamontcg 4y ago
  > Out there it's an arms race, and it's in your best interest to pick the bulkiest suit of armor. Up until an F350 barrels through an intersection, clips off a breakaway light pole and flattens you while you're waiting to cross at the crosswalk.
andreygrehov 4y ago
I think it's important to understand the why behind people buying these cars. One can bullshit on how terrible (light-)trucks are all day long, but that won't change a thing. The market exists and it's not going to shrink anytime soon. I'm thinking of getting an SUV. Why? Well, because my family is growing and at some point we won't fit into a regular 5-seater. I would love to live in a city primarily designed for walking, but such cities are overpacked and have crazy high real-estate prices. Before bullshitting on SUVs, maybe it's worth looking into a core issue - start investing into a smaller cities, incentivize corporations to leave New York, San Francisco, etc. - spread them all out across the US and create the smaller versions of Manhattan. I could be wrong though, but that's my take on it.
- acjacobson 4y ago
  He addresses the size of vehicle issue and explains how station wagons or vans are more practical than SUVs for most families. Perhaps your situation is different, but I felt he made a compelling case.
  - andreygrehov 4y ago
    I'm in the middle of the video right now, but honestly, I absolutely hate the look of station wagons. The author makes a lot of claims that I do not share (not all of them though). For example, I do find G63 a cool looking car. On the other hand, pick up trucks are ugly as hell. But for some people they are not. People are different and they prefer different things. That's what makes our lives interesting and varied. It feels like the author wants to fix the problem by just saying "Hey people, don't buy SUVs. Hey corporations, don't manufacture SUVs", whereas a more strategic and "backward" approach is needed.
    - acjacobson 4y ago
      > People are different and they prefer different things. That's what makes our lives interesting and varied. Agree, however, I think the a key point of the video is about how we balance our own experience vs. that of the community we live in. SUVs and light trucks have a cost and it's fair to question if that cost is worth it. He shed light in areas where I wasn't so familiar such as blind spots and child fatalities. > It feels like the author wants to fix the problem by just saying "Hey people, don't buy SUVs. Hey corporations, don't manufacture SUVs", whereas a more strategic and "backward" approach is needed. I thought his main argument was that people respond to incentives. That's why 40 years ago the Ford Escort was so popular vs. the F150 today. These incentives are driven by government regulation. He acknowledges that it is rational to buy an SUV when everyone has one because it's game theory. The way out is for society to regulate trucks more fairly according to their broader costs. There are reasons we need trucks and we should have trucks, but perhaps we shouldn't incentivize that to be the primary vehicle for everyone.
bitbang 4y ago
This video is nothing but confirmation bias narrated over stock video clips. By the same logic used in this video: - Bicyclist in traffic accidents are much more likely to die than those in SUVs. Also, because the physical size is so much smaller, it's much easier to miss seeing them, which increases risk of accidents. Therefor to ensure safety we should all drive SUVs. - Bicyclist are much slower than SUVs, causing traffic congestion which wastes time and reduces fuel economy. Furthermore, the slow speed results in significantly extended commute times resulting in poor time-management. Therefor we should all drive SUVs to increase efficiency. - Transporting 3 kids to soccer practice with a bicycle is dangerous for both physical and mental health of the kids due to factors mentioned above. Furthermore the mom will loose her ever-loving mind if there is no video playing in the back seat to distract the 3 year-old from asking "are we there yet" every 2 minutes. Therefor, for the sake of mental health, we should all drive SUVs.
- jhanschoo 4y ago
  > Bicyclist in traffic accidents are much more likely to die than those in SUVs. Also, because the physical size is so much smaller, it's much easier to miss seeing them, which increases risk of accidents. I think the author will agree with this premise but not the conclusion. They will argue that individually, you'd be safer in an accident with a bicycle if you drove an SUV instead of "lighter, electric vehicles", and the cyclist will be way less safe, hence society in aggregate is less safe if more people drove SUVs instead of sedans. Hence the author concludes, in 18:30, that "we should be moving to lighter electric vehicles", contrary to what you claim their "logic" to be. > Bicyclist are much slower than SUVs, causing traffic congestion which wastes time and reduces fuel economy. Furthermore, the slow speed results in significantly extended commute times resulting in poor time-management. Therefor we should all drive SUVs to increase efficiency. The author would agree with you if cyclists typically occupied the full lane. In practice, cyclists yield to vehicles in the same lane. One also compares the fuel savings of not driving against the total congestion it causes. > Transporting 3 kids to soccer practice with a bicycle is dangerous for both physical and mental health of the kids due to factors mentioned above. Furthermore the mom will loose her ever-loving mind if there is no video playing in the back seat to distract the 3 year-old from asking "are we there yet" every 2 minutes. Therefor, for the sake of mental health, we should all drive SUVs. The author would argue not to commute by bicycle in this instance but that "we should be moving to lighter electric vehicles". I'm not certain regarding a video playing; the price difference should be able to get you a more versatile iPad.
pimlottc 4y ago
I had a collision with a car while riding an e-bike last week; I was going straight when the car, in the opposite lane, turned right in front of me to enter a parking lot. I tried to stop but ended up running straight into their front fender, sending me over the handlebars. Fortunately for me, it was a sedan, and I landed on the hood with nothing more than a few light bumps. If it had been a truck, or an SUV... I'd have gone straight into the side, probably hit my head, bounced into the street, who knows what.
- mikrotikker 4y ago
  Yea who knows an alien might have got out of the truck and abducted you, only to return you hours later in the parking lot, probably. /s
WirelessGigabit 4y ago
One thing that people don't really undestand about the Dutch is that they don't drive small cars by choice. It's by design. Insanely high taxes. Now let me tell you, I've driven a LOT in Germany & Austria, and I've been stuck behind many Dutch pulling their caravans in their tiny cars that don't make it up to 55mph. So then semi trucks start to pass. It's hell. I wish they had more horsepower.
- mikrotikker 4y ago
  They don't need more horsepower, they need smaller caravans. Caravans small enough to tow behind a bicycle on the way to buy a Xmas tree.
steve76 4y ago
[dead]
aklemm 4y ago
I love my big 4x4 Tundra, even though it’s unfortunate as a daily driver. But pulling stumps, going waaaayyy into the back country and especially the beach, it’s a tool and it enables adventures like no other.
jcpsimmons 4y ago
If there’s an accident between an F150 and a Prius I’d rather my family be in the F150. The premise of OPs video is nice but it’s utopian. Once only mid size sedans are on the road, I’ll drive my family around in one. Until then, I’ll keep them in a much safer vehicle.
throwaway22032 4y ago
As a European who has visited the US, I mean, they're just nice though. It's fun to drive a truck. The experience is better than driving a little city car like I do here in the UK. I would have one here if the roads were wider. To me this just feels like another one of those "we could just have a lower quality of life" things that seem super popular amongst a small subset of people. I don't need one, but I want one, I can have one, and you can just fuck off if you don't like that. I mean, that's about as American as it gets.
- leroy-is-here 4y ago
  Let em know, champ.
penguin_booze 4y ago
Guess the place: greed, gluttony, stupidity, "freedom".
wscott 4y ago
Many of the comments say that trucks should have a tax premium. In my state (and a lot of others) only two types of cars are explicitly called out to have an extra charge in the yearly property tax. Hybrids like a Prius are +$50 and electric cars like a Tesla are +$100. Most state income from cars comes from a tax on gasoline and so they view electric vehicles as not paying "their fair share". And the big gas hungry SUVs and trucks are a good source of income for the states. Part of fixing this stuff is changing the economics of how states do taxes for cars. It is a tough problem and many of the alternative suggestions have fairness or privacy issues.
hnarn 4y ago
I’m European, so I’m looking at the US fascination with SUVs from the outside, and my take is that it’s a similar circular effect as in US gun ownership. Everyone needs a car, so everyone gets one. Since the US is hyper-individualistic (by no means a uniquely American trait) you want a “safe” car, but not “safe” as in “Volvo” but “safe” as in “being able to ram another vehicle if it tries to stop you”. So this escalates the trend of how a car is supposed to look, and when you’re forced into an infrastructure where the “default” car to European eyes looks more like an Infantry Mobility Vehicle than anything else, what are you going to buy when you need a “car”? The implication is quite objectively that if you buy anything less, you are in a sense in danger, and the same goes for gun ownership: it’s very easy to be a proponent of strict gun control in a country where almost nobody has one. I currently don’t own a car, because I don’t need one, and I’ll likely never own a gun for the same reasons, but I’m not fooling myself: if I took the place of an SUV- and gun-owning American I probably wouldn’t get rid of them. I guess my point is that since these are both circular problems, they’re kind of a Gordian knot. It’s not easy to start untying the reality as it is, but it’s of course possible if the political will exists.
- mikrotikker 4y ago
  The gun thing isn't a circular problem tho since humans can pose a threat even without a gun. Even the difference between men and women puts the woman at a huge disadvantage. Thus a firearm becomes a force equalizer for her protection from the average unarmed man that could easily victimise her.
  - hnarn 4y ago
    That’s not the point. It’s a circular problem because if you live in a country where the majority owns guns, your safety is obviously compromised if you don’t, to a degree it wouldn’t be in a country where almost no one did. That women are on average less strong than men is just as irrelevant as any other existing difference in violence capital before involving guns, that’s not the point, and neither is the point that guns are “equalizers” because everyone understands this, the question is how the average rate of gun ownership affects itself (circular), and to me it’s pretty obvious and relatable: if everyone else has a gun then you’re exposed without one, if no one else has a gun then not having one is much more tolerable because the violence monopoly of the judiciary system can be upheld.
Balgair 4y ago
Aside: In my neighborhood there tends to be a lot of these large trucks parked on the street or in the drive. We get a lot of snow, so parking inside the garage is advantageous. Unfortunately, these trucks can't fit. They're too tall to make it inside. These houses were built in the late '80, so not terribly old.

168 points by amai 4y ago

I suspect that the lack of comments means that most people agree with the sentiment but put off watching the video for later. If true - it says something about the relative ease of consumption of textual content. I follow a political scientist who says she never views videos (of official statements for example) because the transcripts are so much more efficient, and makes sure to post transcripts of her video appearances. EDIT: and oh yeah, hate the goddam trucks of course.

buzzert 4y ago
GPT-4 summary, since I also found the narrator annoying and went straight to the transcript: > The growth of SUVs and light trucks presents a challenge to creating walkable cities due to their size, poor visibility, and negative impact on safety and the environment. The popularity of these vehicles has been driven by marketing from the auto industry, which has promoted their supposed safety and versatility. However, their size and design make them more dangerous for pedestrians and other road users, and they contribute significantly to carbon emissions. Cities need to take steps to regulate SUVs and light trucks, such as taxing them by weight, limiting vehicles with high bumpers, and increasing fees for parking permits and insurance.
- throwwwaway69 4y ago
  I feel like Youtube vidoes are a massively annoying format for digesting information. It's so slow compared to text and it's full of fillers and introductions and flowery language. I'm surprised this is so upvoted on HN, especially because in my brief scanning the video format doesn't add anything
  - kawfey 4y ago
    I typically watch at 1.75x speed, sometimes 2x. Same (sometimes faster) for podcasts. Of course there’s a one sentence bottom line to a majority of YouTube content, but I appreciate the artform, adjacent color commentary, and evidence-based rigor from these higher quality creators. Albeit at a ridiculous speed lol.
projektfu 4y ago
Yep, I even gave the video a chance but I wasn't going to sit through the whole thing. Of course, it was also preaching to the choir.
CalRobert 4y ago
I watched this video before it showed up here. I am delighted to see it make the front page of HN (though Slaughter already has plenty of notoriety) and upvoted without saying much, because the urbanism fight is just... tiring. At least when talking to North Americans.
- twblalock 4y ago
  Maybe the urbanism fight is tiring because people realize what they would have to give up in order to achieve the urbanist vision -- especially their trucks and SUVs. Selling a positive vision rather than shaming people and trying to take things away from them would help.
  - beej71 4y ago
    But what if the SUV is the positive vision being sold? Do SUV owners want to live in a world where they drive smaller cars?
JohnFen 4y ago
> I suspect that the lack of comments means that most people agree with the sentiment but put off watching the video for later This was me. Video is rather hard for me, because I need to be in the right time and place for it.
munchler 4y ago
It depends on the context. When I’m cruising HN, I have no interest in watching a video. When I’m watching TV, the same video might be perfect.
SergeAx 4y ago
I am trying to avoid videos and podcasts too. But it is an uphill battle. Text, while easier to produce, would give the platform only 10 minutes of engagement at best instead of 30, and won't generate comparable number of subscriptions. Also text is easier to copy and harder to monetize. So, there is either zero or a negative incentive for authors to go text.
mikrotikker 4y ago
I love trucks. They're a lot of fun to drive (I have two 1990 JDM SUV for offroad camping. Especially to modify and add things like CB radios for convoys, bull bars for protection from trees and assholes who won't let you merge. My favourite modification was a turbo. At night in the bush, navigating some track, the turbo diesel whistle sounds so good, and gives more torque for the mud. I think it's quite weird to hate a type of vehicle and want to prevent other people from accessing it. Just live and let live.
- beej71 4y ago
  I'm good with live and let live. But my SO's Honda Fit was just demolished by a modern truck who "didn't see her" despite having a clear line of sight down the road--but due to the relative slope, I suspect the Fit was obscured by the truck hood. She was in pain for 6 weeks. So where is live and let live?
- sinistersnare 4y ago
  Maybe you should watch the video and realize that it can't be live and let live. By you living with your truck, we die.
  - mikrotikker 4y ago
    Yea, no, I challenge the narrative pushed in the video as flawed at best.
- vvpan 4y ago
  Well I'll be first to admit that my thing against trucks is a bit of knee jerk. To me they are big, loud, scary and expensive. I'm uncomfortable being around roads full of trucks, especially biking. Yet I know that a Mazda Miata will kill be just as well. And I can see the utility in a lot of situations. I've looked at them for camping in wilderness of western US too, I'll be honest, but realized that I would not be able to stretch out in any of them and quickly passed. Yet at the same time I just moved to a little city that identifies hard (to an unhealthy degree imho) with cowboy and military culture and it seems most vehicles are trucks. I honestly think this contributes to this city being universally looked down upon and ridiculed. Although the symbolism of the truck in this context is probably tightly enmashed with the real physical properties. Utility depends on context. Emotions matter. Urbanism consists of emotional responses. Camping in wilderness is different.

ChadNauseam 4y ago

I haven't watched the video yet, but I assume it's going to be about how new, giant trucks are more deadly to pedestrians. I've heard it said, but not been able to verify, that the rise in these giant trucks is caused by the EPA having less-strict MPG requirements for heavier vehicles. Does anyone know more about this?

XorNot 4y ago
It's also to do with safety equipment: it's basically the same stuff whether you build a sedan or a truck, so it costs the same to put in. But perceptually the consumer gets "more cat" for their money by buying a bigger vehicle since the safety gear is largely a fixed cost.
dualboot 4y ago
They're more deadly to anything that encounters them in an accident that is smaller than them.
- darth_avocado 4y ago
  I was driving a hatchback in 2015 and was rear ended by a truck at an intersection when I slowed down for the amber light while the truck didn’t. I ended up in the middle of the intersection, with traffic just starting to go on both sides. The worst part, the back of the car was boxed in so far, that it almost touched the driver’s seat. Thankfully no one was sitting behind me. The truck on the other hand had a after market metal guard in front of it, which meant it had little damage beyond the guard needing a paint job. Even the headlights were intact. I remember thinking that I’ll never want to drive anything smaller than a truck if I want to drive in America. It took my 7 years before I switched back to a sedan, thanks to Tesla M3.
  - mikrotikker 4y ago
    Shit that sucks. I was rear ended by a station wagon in my my truck when I slowed down at a give way an he didn't. I'm 2300kgs so I hardly moved. He got a nice dent in his bumper from my towbar. Maybe you should get a truck? (I'm not in America)

geocrasher 4y ago

Don't hate SUV's. Don't hate trucks. If you're going to have disdain, have it for the people who drive them as status symbols or as compensation for... things. I own one vehicle, and it is an old SUV. I enjoy it because it's borderline a classic vehicle but it's also extremely economical for my use case. My use case does not factor in MPG. Plus, it's cool. The only thing a video called "These Stupid Trucks are Literally Killing Us" is going to do is get a bunch of people who dislike SUV's to agree with it. And that's fine. Any argument can be true if you want it bad enough, I guess.

f_devd 4y ago
There are other good arguments for disliking SUVs compared to all other consumer cars like crash incompatibly & bad vision for 'low' objects (children, other cars).
kylehotchkiss 4y ago
I also drive a SUV and find it alarming how much bigger a lifted F250/F350 next to me is. The way they drive can be pretty appalling... full throttle just to pass, switch 3 lanes without looking, intensionally cutting off small cars (2 things I saw in the past week!) I can't imagine how intimidating that would be in a sedan. Which I think is the point of lifting a huge truck?
- geocrasher 4y ago
  And this is kind of my point. BroMobiles != SUV's
- twblalock 4y ago
  Plenty of people in Dodge Chargers behave the same way. Idiots are going to be idiots no matter what they drive.
ryeights 4y ago
These things can all be true at the same time: * SUVs are useful tools that can serve a real purpose * Even within the same vehicle classes, cars are getting bigger and heavier in the name of safety and consumer preferences. This is disastrous for the safety of pedestrians and drivers of smaller vehicles * Most people will never take their SUVs/trucks off-road, or use them for blue collar-type work, or tow anything more than once a year, for which they could easily rent a vehicle * Thus, barring safety concerns (which are themselves exacerbated by the prevalence of massive vehicles on the roads) or an opportunistic desire for more interior space, most people would be equally well served by smaller cars. * However, people are not buying smaller cars. This has the effect of “literally killing” sharply increasing numbers of pedestrians every year, and indirectly killing countless others through increased air pollution and greenhouse gas effects.

VoodooJuJu 4y ago

I can't listen to videos like this where the narrator uses emotional affectations in a scripted report. >https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo?t=38 https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo?t=38 >They're just... BAD for cities. Really bad. >https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo?t=81 https://youtu.be/jN7mSXMruEo?t=81 >We're constantly being told that the astronomical growth in the average size of motor vehicles would infringe on the """FREEDOMS""" of people to do whatever they want. It's cringe, unnatural, and distracts from the message. Present the logic of your argument in a neutral manner and leave it to the listener for emotional interpretation - don't force it.

Gigachad 4y ago
The guy from the channel doesn't really care about seeming cringe or making videos for people who buy these trucks and SUVs. His audience is people who already agree we need to make change and his content is about providing points, examples of what is wrong, ways it can be improved, and data to back it up.
- justinator 4y ago
  It's refreshing isn't it? "Seeming cringe" only happens if you already suffer from "Car Brain", which I think is best defined as thinking of the car itself as having inalienable rights, much like that of a human being.
  - mikrotikker 4y ago
    Just seems like stealing peoples joy. Suffer from "car brain" is a great way to write off and invalidate the opinions of a large swathe of people who enjoy or have cars as a hobby. I bet you'd crack the shits if people started talking about banning GPUs cos they use too much power and anyway, they're only used to play games.
- mardifoufs 4y ago
  Or the guy is just clickbaiting and knows that outrage sells on youtube.
4y ago

atrettel 4y ago

I agree with the video's thesis that large trucks and SUVs are unsafe to pedestrians, children, and other drivers even, but the end of the video focuses on trying to change regulations to make these kind of vehicles safer in many respects. The issue is that, at least in the United States, there are so many of these large trucks and SUVs on the road, that even if some safer regulations come in, these vehicles are already on the road in large numbers. In my neighborhood alone, there are more large trucks and SUVs than cars. I wish that the video concentrated more on things that you can do to protect yourself or others from large trucks and SUVs. I have been hit by a car while cycling before, and it was no fun, but I did at least roll up the hood as described in the video. That will not happen for one of these large vehicles. I try to concentrate on positive things that I can at least control for in cases like these, but I honestly am drawing a blank. Any ideas?

mslate 4y ago
We could take these vehicles off the road. They have to be registered with the state department of motor vehicles. Either charge them a differentially higher vehicle registration fee, or ban them outright. Another front is questioning whether car insurance rates reflect the real legal liability that drivers of these vehicles incur? If they truly kill kids then shouldn't their car insurance rates be exorbitantly higher?
- chongli 4y ago
  We could take these vehicles off the road. That’s a political non-starter in the U.S. You’d have better luck taking away personal firearms.
  - justinator 4y ago
    I don't disagree with you, but there is nothing in the Constitution that protects one's right to own and drive a car (there is for owning firearms). But car ownership is seen as a right, rather than a privilege, and that comes with it a hugely entrenched feeling of entitlement, privilege, and exceptionalism. A way to feel this is to go car-free for a week in the US. Some places are easier than others. But compare this to going car-free for a week in Europe. It will probably be a much different experience for most places in Europe, as compared to the US.

throw0101b 4y ago

The video points to this article ("Pickup Trucks: From Workhorse to Joyride") that was discussed a little while ago: > But during those 40 years, pickups have changed significantly. They’ve become bigger, heavier and more tricked out, and they’ve transformed from workhorse vehicles to family cruisers. * https://www.axios.com/ford-pickup-trucks-history https://www.axios.com/ford-pickup-trucks-history * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35046151 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35046151 The top-selling vehicle in 2022 was the Ford F-150; top selling vehicle in 1982 was Ford Escort: I'm having a hard time believing that people's hauling needs have changed in the intervening decades to rationally justify the sales figures.

DubiousPusher 4y ago
The very perplexing thing is that these trucks keep getting bigger without any significant increase in hauling or seating capacity. I have an occasional driver 2003 Silverado for materials pickup and dump runs. It is a fullsize pickup for its year. 2022 Silverados and F250s completely dwarf it. Yet they have the same seating capacity and bed length. It's totally bizarre. And IMO, they're uglier to boot with their Big Mac looking hamburger ass grills.
- ryeights 4y ago
  Blame the IIHS. Safety ratings give literally zero concern to the possible effects to pedestrians of a collision, no concern to visibility, and only minimal concern to the effects on the driver on the other side of the collision. It’s a full-on arms race of bulkier frames, huge crumple zones, and more mass.
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  > The very perplexing thing is that these trucks keep getting bigger without any significant increase in hauling or seating capacity. That's not just trucks. My parents have a recent Hyundai Ioniq. The car is fat and can have trouble fitting into parking spaces. But there's no benefit; the extra width seems to have gone into providing empty space between the interior seats and the doors. So the usable part of the interior is just as narrow as ever, but it's harder to maneuver and you have to unbuckle and lean way the hell out of your window to interact with toll booths / parking garage machines / etc. Who wants this?

stopping 4y ago

Over the years my opinion on light trucks has shifted from ambivalence to seething resentment. The main reason is that I now live in an area where large vehicles have become increasingly disruptive to normal living: 1) Side streets that prioritize street parking (e.g. streets with multi-family housing) mean that a poorly-parked truck is literally impossible to see around when you're driving a smaller vehicle. Exiting an apartment driveway is frequently a precarious maneuver when you can't clearly see traffic coming in one or both directions. Heaven forbid there's a bicyclist obstructed from view. 2) Headlight elevation blinds other drivers, especially those in shorter vehicles. If you're being blinded from behind at night, you have to slow down to let them pass, or else your mirrors become useless or even actively dangerous to look at. 3) Blind spots in newer light trucks are horrendously large, as indicated in the video. Many drivers are not aware of the blind spot to the front-right side of the cab and are at risk of being PITed by an inattentive driver changing lanes into them. 4) Echoing the point about parking infrastructure. Being unable to park these sorts of vehicles in standard spaces and garages means that many of these end up parked on the street where inconvenience to other drivers is maximized. The only way a driver can completely mitigate these problems is to simply join in the Bigger Vehicle arms race, to the detriment of all other drivers and pedestrians.

JohnFen 4y ago
I totally agree. These trucks have started to make me actively angry.
- mikrotikker 4y ago
  You shouldn't let it affect you. I would advise you to look into meditation, or at the least cannabis.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Typical American went to France/Nice for a week. It is astonishing how many more small cars can fit and move around roads than a bunch of SUVs. The "personal space" of an SUV is gigantic, while driving around in small cars you have a vastly better sense of the road and people around you. If everyone is driving cars, your visibility of the road and traffic is far better because you can see through the windshields of cars in front of you. AND THOSE GODDAMN HEADLIGHTS. When the human race was first getting mainstream education on global warming in the late 1990s, the United States of America collectively decided to basically double the weight of its vehicles, and squander engineering wonders that vastly increased the fuel economy of vehicles. If the demand and desire for these is really so great, slap a $10,000 surcharge + $1,000/year fee on their ownership and redirect all of it to BEVs and alt energy.

SecurityMinded 4y ago

Idiotic utopia, geared towards crowded European cities. In the US, it is moronic idea at best. I'd rather be in the driver seat of that truck and not die as a result of an accident. Trucks are not stupid. They are useful vehicles if you live in Rural places. What is stupid is the creator of this video.

topaz0 4y ago
I'd rather have nobody die as a result of preventing that accident.
Fauntleroy 4y ago
Sounds like something you should tell the creator of the video in a youtube comment
Mordisquitos 4y ago
I'd rather not kill my kid in my driveway with my truck, but to each his own.
desperate 4y ago
Did you watch the video? The author has nothing against trucks themselves, it's SUVs (light trucks) in suburbia and cities that he argues is the problem. Specifically, the many cases where people never even use the capabilities of the larger car (off roading, towing, stuffing it full of shit) and instead the choice of a larger car becomes an overall negative for society (more dangerous for the other guy in any collision, harder to see around, harder to see kids or pets as the driver, headlights more blinding to oncoming traffic die to their greater elevation). Anyhow, you sound very angry and closed minded, maybe give other opinions a chance, you don't have to agree but you also don't have to be an ass about it

twblalock 4y ago

This is just culture war dreck dressed up as an argument. The phrase `pathetic suburbanites` even appears in the video description. The anti-truck stuff is really a proxy for hating a lifestyle and the people who live it. It's funny to see how people who hate trucks are now carping about things like parking space now that electric trucks make gas mileage and emissions irrelevant. It's not wrong to like trucks.

irrelative 4y ago
I agree it's not wrong to like trucks, and that hating on the owners is a cheap shot. I also think that this video points out the externalities that trucks impose. In a rational society, one would expect the government to address these externalities, but here we are.
- twblalock 4y ago
  It's not the government's job to fix everything or engineer a perfect society, and personal choice and freedom matter too. This YouTuber, like many other people who favor a denser urban lifestyle, looks down on people who disagree with him and wants the government to coerce them into living the way he wants them to. "Externalities" are just an excuse for that, and even if those externalities were removed he would find other justifications because the root cause is that he doesn't like the people who prefer a different lifestyle than him.
  - gizmo 4y ago
    The video goes over all the arguments. Trucks have bad visibility, encourage reckless driving, and wreck smaller cars/pedestrians during collisions. This isn't "hating", these are serious problems. Trucks are popular specifically because of government meddling. Importing smaller and cheaper transport vehicles like vans is impossible because of import fees. Trucks also don't have to adhere to emissions and crash safety regulations which means trucks are cheap relative to cars. If we leveled the regulatory playing field trucks wouldn't be nearly as popular.

justinator 4y ago

I'm just some wannabe anarcho cyclist, so my point of view is certainly biased, but these types of trucks are insanity, in my opinion.

ryeights 4y ago

US import restrictions and tariffs also contribute to this problem… I would sell my left pinky toe to be able to buy a VW Multivan stateside. A practical 7 seater that can fit adult passengers in the third row, in a Toyota Camry-size package. Meanwhile, in the US, station wagons are completely dead, “mini”vans are nearly a foot longer than the Multivan and are larger than the fullsize cargo vans of yore, and adult-friendly 3 row SUVs are even larger than that. Automakers are basically coercing consumers into upsizing.

ascagnel_ 4y ago
> Meanwhile, in the US, station wagons are completely dead, In the US, seemingly everything but the SUV is dead. I bought a car in 2021 after having a kid, and it was either a “crossover” (SUV body on a smaller frame) or a minivan if you wanted a five-door/hatchback. I occasionally kick myself for giving up my Fiesta; that thing was wonderful in US cities.
- maxerickson 4y ago
  Japanese hatchbacks are pretty comparable to the Fiesta.

oaththrowaway 4y ago

I live in a rural area and own a truck. I guess I'm the devil?

JohnFen 4y ago
If you need a truck to do truck things, no. If you use a truck as a regular passenger vehicle, maybe.
- oaththrowaway 4y ago
  What's the threshold where me owning a truck is okay to you? 10% "truck" things? 50%?
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Oh, please. I don't even really have a beef with trucks used in the countryside. My main beef is their use in the city as commuting vehicles, where the vast majority of them have never, and will never, be used as a truck. In that setting, trucks are a nuisance and danger to everyone else without any rational reason for being.

redmorphium 4y ago

I drive a pickup truck. The reason is for my own safety & my passengers' safety. I will not compromise on this. Out there it's an arms race, and it's in your best interest to pick the bulkiest suit of armor.

Mordisquitos 4y ago
What makes you think it is safer?
koala_man 4y ago
> I will not compromise on this. Will you collaborate on this? Help ban heavier vehicles for everyone?
lamontcg 4y ago
> Out there it's an arms race, and it's in your best interest to pick the bulkiest suit of armor. Up until an F350 barrels through an intersection, clips off a breakaway light pole and flattens you while you're waiting to cross at the crosswalk.

andreygrehov 4y ago

I think it's important to understand the why behind people buying these cars. One can bullshit on how terrible (light-)trucks are all day long, but that won't change a thing. The market exists and it's not going to shrink anytime soon. I'm thinking of getting an SUV. Why? Well, because my family is growing and at some point we won't fit into a regular 5-seater. I would love to live in a city primarily designed for walking, but such cities are overpacked and have crazy high real-estate prices. Before bullshitting on SUVs, maybe it's worth looking into a core issue - start investing into a smaller cities, incentivize corporations to leave New York, San Francisco, etc. - spread them all out across the US and create the smaller versions of Manhattan. I could be wrong though, but that's my take on it.

acjacobson 4y ago
He addresses the size of vehicle issue and explains how station wagons or vans are more practical than SUVs for most families. Perhaps your situation is different, but I felt he made a compelling case.
- andreygrehov 4y ago
  I'm in the middle of the video right now, but honestly, I absolutely hate the look of station wagons. The author makes a lot of claims that I do not share (not all of them though). For example, I do find G63 a cool looking car. On the other hand, pick up trucks are ugly as hell. But for some people they are not. People are different and they prefer different things. That's what makes our lives interesting and varied. It feels like the author wants to fix the problem by just saying "Hey people, don't buy SUVs. Hey corporations, don't manufacture SUVs", whereas a more strategic and "backward" approach is needed.
  - acjacobson 4y ago
    > People are different and they prefer different things. That's what makes our lives interesting and varied. Agree, however, I think the a key point of the video is about how we balance our own experience vs. that of the community we live in. SUVs and light trucks have a cost and it's fair to question if that cost is worth it. He shed light in areas where I wasn't so familiar such as blind spots and child fatalities. > It feels like the author wants to fix the problem by just saying "Hey people, don't buy SUVs. Hey corporations, don't manufacture SUVs", whereas a more strategic and "backward" approach is needed. I thought his main argument was that people respond to incentives. That's why 40 years ago the Ford Escort was so popular vs. the F150 today. These incentives are driven by government regulation. He acknowledges that it is rational to buy an SUV when everyone has one because it's game theory. The way out is for society to regulate trucks more fairly according to their broader costs. There are reasons we need trucks and we should have trucks, but perhaps we shouldn't incentivize that to be the primary vehicle for everyone.

bitbang 4y ago

This video is nothing but confirmation bias narrated over stock video clips. By the same logic used in this video: - Bicyclist in traffic accidents are much more likely to die than those in SUVs. Also, because the physical size is so much smaller, it's much easier to miss seeing them, which increases risk of accidents. Therefor to ensure safety we should all drive SUVs. - Bicyclist are much slower than SUVs, causing traffic congestion which wastes time and reduces fuel economy. Furthermore, the slow speed results in significantly extended commute times resulting in poor time-management. Therefor we should all drive SUVs to increase efficiency. - Transporting 3 kids to soccer practice with a bicycle is dangerous for both physical and mental health of the kids due to factors mentioned above. Furthermore the mom will loose her ever-loving mind if there is no video playing in the back seat to distract the 3 year-old from asking "are we there yet" every 2 minutes. Therefor, for the sake of mental health, we should all drive SUVs.

jhanschoo 4y ago
> Bicyclist in traffic accidents are much more likely to die than those in SUVs. Also, because the physical size is so much smaller, it's much easier to miss seeing them, which increases risk of accidents. I think the author will agree with this premise but not the conclusion. They will argue that individually, you'd be safer in an accident with a bicycle if you drove an SUV instead of "lighter, electric vehicles", and the cyclist will be way less safe, hence society in aggregate is less safe if more people drove SUVs instead of sedans. Hence the author concludes, in 18:30, that "we should be moving to lighter electric vehicles", contrary to what you claim their "logic" to be. > Bicyclist are much slower than SUVs, causing traffic congestion which wastes time and reduces fuel economy. Furthermore, the slow speed results in significantly extended commute times resulting in poor time-management. Therefor we should all drive SUVs to increase efficiency. The author would agree with you if cyclists typically occupied the full lane. In practice, cyclists yield to vehicles in the same lane. One also compares the fuel savings of not driving against the total congestion it causes. > Transporting 3 kids to soccer practice with a bicycle is dangerous for both physical and mental health of the kids due to factors mentioned above. Furthermore the mom will loose her ever-loving mind if there is no video playing in the back seat to distract the 3 year-old from asking "are we there yet" every 2 minutes. Therefor, for the sake of mental health, we should all drive SUVs. The author would argue not to commute by bicycle in this instance but that "we should be moving to lighter electric vehicles". I'm not certain regarding a video playing; the price difference should be able to get you a more versatile iPad.

pimlottc 4y ago

I had a collision with a car while riding an e-bike last week; I was going straight when the car, in the opposite lane, turned right in front of me to enter a parking lot. I tried to stop but ended up running straight into their front fender, sending me over the handlebars. Fortunately for me, it was a sedan, and I landed on the hood with nothing more than a few light bumps. If it had been a truck, or an SUV... I'd have gone straight into the side, probably hit my head, bounced into the street, who knows what.

mikrotikker 4y ago
Yea who knows an alien might have got out of the truck and abducted you, only to return you hours later in the parking lot, probably. /s

WirelessGigabit 4y ago

One thing that people don't really undestand about the Dutch is that they don't drive small cars by choice. It's by design. Insanely high taxes. Now let me tell you, I've driven a LOT in Germany & Austria, and I've been stuck behind many Dutch pulling their caravans in their tiny cars that don't make it up to 55mph. So then semi trucks start to pass. It's hell. I wish they had more horsepower.

mikrotikker 4y ago
They don't need more horsepower, they need smaller caravans. Caravans small enough to tow behind a bicycle on the way to buy a Xmas tree.

steve76 4y ago

[dead]

aklemm 4y ago

I love my big 4x4 Tundra, even though it’s unfortunate as a daily driver. But pulling stumps, going waaaayyy into the back country and especially the beach, it’s a tool and it enables adventures like no other.

jcpsimmons 4y ago

If there’s an accident between an F150 and a Prius I’d rather my family be in the F150. The premise of OPs video is nice but it’s utopian. Once only mid size sedans are on the road, I’ll drive my family around in one. Until then, I’ll keep them in a much safer vehicle.

throwaway22032 4y ago

As a European who has visited the US, I mean, they're just nice though. It's fun to drive a truck. The experience is better than driving a little city car like I do here in the UK. I would have one here if the roads were wider. To me this just feels like another one of those "we could just have a lower quality of life" things that seem super popular amongst a small subset of people. I don't need one, but I want one, I can have one, and you can just fuck off if you don't like that. I mean, that's about as American as it gets.

leroy-is-here 4y ago
Let em know, champ.

penguin_booze 4y ago

Guess the place: greed, gluttony, stupidity, "freedom".

wscott 4y ago

Many of the comments say that trucks should have a tax premium. In my state (and a lot of others) only two types of cars are explicitly called out to have an extra charge in the yearly property tax. Hybrids like a Prius are +$50 and electric cars like a Tesla are +$100. Most state income from cars comes from a tax on gasoline and so they view electric vehicles as not paying "their fair share". And the big gas hungry SUVs and trucks are a good source of income for the states. Part of fixing this stuff is changing the economics of how states do taxes for cars. It is a tough problem and many of the alternative suggestions have fairness or privacy issues.

hnarn 4y ago

I’m European, so I’m looking at the US fascination with SUVs from the outside, and my take is that it’s a similar circular effect as in US gun ownership. Everyone needs a car, so everyone gets one. Since the US is hyper-individualistic (by no means a uniquely American trait) you want a “safe” car, but not “safe” as in “Volvo” but “safe” as in “being able to ram another vehicle if it tries to stop you”. So this escalates the trend of how a car is supposed to look, and when you’re forced into an infrastructure where the “default” car to European eyes looks more like an Infantry Mobility Vehicle than anything else, what are you going to buy when you need a “car”? The implication is quite objectively that if you buy anything less, you are in a sense in danger, and the same goes for gun ownership: it’s very easy to be a proponent of strict gun control in a country where almost nobody has one. I currently don’t own a car, because I don’t need one, and I’ll likely never own a gun for the same reasons, but I’m not fooling myself: if I took the place of an SUV- and gun-owning American I probably wouldn’t get rid of them. I guess my point is that since these are both circular problems, they’re kind of a Gordian knot. It’s not easy to start untying the reality as it is, but it’s of course possible if the political will exists.

mikrotikker 4y ago
The gun thing isn't a circular problem tho since humans can pose a threat even without a gun. Even the difference between men and women puts the woman at a huge disadvantage. Thus a firearm becomes a force equalizer for her protection from the average unarmed man that could easily victimise her.
- hnarn 4y ago
  That’s not the point. It’s a circular problem because if you live in a country where the majority owns guns, your safety is obviously compromised if you don’t, to a degree it wouldn’t be in a country where almost no one did. That women are on average less strong than men is just as irrelevant as any other existing difference in violence capital before involving guns, that’s not the point, and neither is the point that guns are “equalizers” because everyone understands this, the question is how the average rate of gun ownership affects itself (circular), and to me it’s pretty obvious and relatable: if everyone else has a gun then you’re exposed without one, if no one else has a gun then not having one is much more tolerable because the violence monopoly of the judiciary system can be upheld.

Balgair 4y ago

Aside: In my neighborhood there tends to be a lot of these large trucks parked on the street or in the drive. We get a lot of snow, so parking inside the garage is advantageous. Unfortunately, these trucks can't fit. They're too tall to make it inside. These houses were built in the late '80, so not terribly old.