4 ms·

The sane solution: ban massive cars, give exemptions to people with true professional needs The ’murica solution: get an even bigger truck yourself, so the oth

by nikanj 4y ago

The sane solution: ban massive cars, give exemptions to people with true professional needs The ’murica solution: get an even bigger truck yourself, so the other party sustains most of the damage

unpopular42 4y ago
Give exemptions to people with true professional needs, as determined by the party
- version_five 4y ago
  This is the only intelligent comment I've seen in the discussion (which was destined to be a silly pile-on anyway). The only thing worse than people being allowed to choose big dangerous cars is a state regime where bureaucrats get to decide which car you can drive based on your needs. Incidentally, there's going to be a massive jump in people driving bigger commercial vehicles anyway as gas vehicles get phased out for consumer use. A lot of big SUVs are the result of the regulatory regime already. Stupid regulations almost always make things worse.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    > Stupid regulations almost always make things worse. This is such an ideological comment. The reality is that stupid regulations make things worse, but non-stupid regulations make things better. We want non-stupid regulations. A world without regulations is a non-starter due to the tragedy of the commons incentive problem. Imagine a world where dumping was legal because there were no regulations. Or where explosives could be purchased from your local corner store because they weren't regulated. It's a non-starter. You would be dead from a resulting illness or terrorist attack. Nobody wants it, including you. So if you can propose a regulation-free solution to the various incentive problems like tragedy of the commons, then I'm all ears, but the burden of proof is on you to do that, and it's a burden you haven't met.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
blamazon 4y ago
Don't need an outright ban - just negative incentives. It should cost an astronomical amount to drive a huge vehicle in a dense urban environment and dramatically less in a rural environment. Today, in USA, that cost difference is generally not that much in practice. Secondly, infrastructure is another much better solution than policy. Even if large personal vehicles were outright banned there will always be large vehicles in urban environments - transit buses, garbage trucks, etc. Thus, to prevent crashes, it is most effective to just separate the large vehicles from the small with separated/protected bike lanes.
- Out_of_Characte 4y ago
  Alot of countries have something to that extent since vehicle weight causes exponentially more road wear.
- jakeinspace 4y ago
  Perhaps a CDL or similar license requirent for large SUVs/Pickups? Add some friction, cost, and minimum driving competency.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    Frankly, the driving test in the US is a joke. Better testing/education standards for all would provide one of the most biggest improvements to safety given that it would apply to all situations and not just pedestrians/bicycles/[other singlular topic of the moment]. Proper safety training in school would be beneficial to other road users as well. After all, it's hard to be safe when you're ignorant. Even more so if both parties are.
- Zak 4y ago
  Right now, the incentive is opposite: bigger cars get a break on fuel economy standards. We could start by removing that. US fuel economy standards are, as I understand it on a sort of cap and trade model with respect to a car maker's average fuel economy. Much of Tesla's profit comes from selling fuel economy credits. The result of removing the break larger cars get wouldn't be that they all disappear, but their prices would trend upward.
loeg 4y ago
Don't need to ban, just make them more expensive in proportion to their danger to society. Activity that is economical at higher cost will continue to use the big trucks.
- r00fus 4y ago
  In addition to removing the light-truck loophole, vehicle registration should incur much higher fees for high weight vehicles. Perhaps a sliding scale. This would allow states to recoup some money lost to gas taxes by EVs.
crooked-v 4y ago
Just getting rid of the "light truck" loophole in standards would immediately do a lot.
- fooker 4y ago
  This kind of measures usually have a really negative effect. Every car designed afterwards will try to be as close to the allowed limit as possible, eventually successfully lobbying for the limit to be increased. Public policy is not a common sense topic, no matter how easy it seems to have an opinion.
fatneckbeard 4y ago
yeah ive been riding bicycles 30 years. what we want is separate bike roads, bike crosses, bike parking, like the Netherlands, we do not want some giant police movement to regulate truck sizes. this is like the definition of why liberals cannot win elections. the first instinct is never to solve problems, it is to find some 'wrongdoer' and punish them.
- _dain_ 4y ago
  there really does have to be something done about truck sizes though, they're objectively a hazard to pedestrians because the driver can see less. they're a nuisance in cities because they exceed the standard size of parking spaces, they cause more wear on the roads, and increase congestion.
- mhalle 4y ago
  Except that pedestrians face the same or greater risks than bicyclists from vehicles from higher front ends. The biggest challenge is that pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers tend to live, work, and shop in the same locations. Even with separate facilities (sidewalks, cycle tracks), there will be conflicts (intersections and driveways). Lack of visibility and a disparity of mass and velocity are always going to be hazardous at these conflict points.
- version_five 4y ago
  Thank you for this comment. I (as a large SUV driver) would be happy to have my tax dollars diverted to separate bike routes, with sane traffic signals, that let drivers and cyclists safely move around. There's way to much ideology involved, and not enough pragmatism.
- MichaelGlass 4y ago
  To be clear, “we” the cyclists want cars to be prohibitively expensive in cities. Presumably we the cyclists aren’t so homogenous.
- eyelidlessness 4y ago
  I’ve been an avid cyclist most of my adult life. I’m all for separated bike infrastructure, and it would certainly save lives. But it doesn’t address the actual problem: the enlarging of vehicles and reduction of line of sight for drivers is a danger to everyone. I’m also an even more avid pedestrian. I routinely encounter drivers who struggle to see me over their hood, or even the increasingly high floor for windows in auto designs almost across the board. I’m above average height for US men, but I’ve even had to navigate around trucks with hoods so tall it would be nearly if not totally impossible for a driver to see me at all, much less see my pup. I’m not exaggerating, I walked across an intersection just the other day where I had to stand on my toes to see if a driver was even at the wheel in a huge truck stopped at a stop sign, while simultaneously forcibly shuffling my pup ahead of me so the potential driver wouldn’t see me clear the intersection and assume that’s all there is to it. All the while, I was imagining what would happen if there was a driver at the wheel and we couldn’t make all of the necessary communications for a safe crossing. This truck wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, the intersection wasn’t either. The experience is even more common for navigating around vehicles in reverse. I’m not going to make any policy suggestions, and I don’t care about how this affects elections or relative success of any political perspective. I will just say that balancing public safety without requiring automobile accommodations for it is inherently untenable.
cscurmudgeon 4y ago
The sane solution: increase density lowering need for cars. But rich NIMBYies (who are often the cyclists) won't let that happen. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/11/16/american-cycling-has-racism-problem/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/11/16/american-c...

by nikanj 4y ago

The sane solution: ban massive cars, give exemptions to people with true professional needs The ’murica solution: get an even bigger truck yourself, so the other party sustains most of the damage

unpopular42 4y ago

Give exemptions to people with true professional needs, as determined by the party

version_five 4y ago
This is the only intelligent comment I've seen in the discussion (which was destined to be a silly pile-on anyway). The only thing worse than people being allowed to choose big dangerous cars is a state regime where bureaucrats get to decide which car you can drive based on your needs. Incidentally, there's going to be a massive jump in people driving bigger commercial vehicles anyway as gas vehicles get phased out for consumer use. A lot of big SUVs are the result of the regulatory regime already. Stupid regulations almost always make things worse.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hackerlight 4y ago
  > Stupid regulations almost always make things worse. This is such an ideological comment. The reality is that stupid regulations make things worse, but non-stupid regulations make things better. We want non-stupid regulations. A world without regulations is a non-starter due to the tragedy of the commons incentive problem. Imagine a world where dumping was legal because there were no regulations. Or where explosives could be purchased from your local corner store because they weren't regulated. It's a non-starter. You would be dead from a resulting illness or terrorist attack. Nobody wants it, including you. So if you can propose a regulation-free solution to the various incentive problems like tragedy of the commons, then I'm all ears, but the burden of proof is on you to do that, and it's a burden you haven't met.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

blamazon 4y ago

Don't need an outright ban - just negative incentives. It should cost an astronomical amount to drive a huge vehicle in a dense urban environment and dramatically less in a rural environment. Today, in USA, that cost difference is generally not that much in practice. Secondly, infrastructure is another much better solution than policy. Even if large personal vehicles were outright banned there will always be large vehicles in urban environments - transit buses, garbage trucks, etc. Thus, to prevent crashes, it is most effective to just separate the large vehicles from the small with separated/protected bike lanes.

Out_of_Characte 4y ago
Alot of countries have something to that extent since vehicle weight causes exponentially more road wear.
jakeinspace 4y ago
Perhaps a CDL or similar license requirent for large SUVs/Pickups? Add some friction, cost, and minimum driving competency.
- giantg2 4y ago
  Frankly, the driving test in the US is a joke. Better testing/education standards for all would provide one of the most biggest improvements to safety given that it would apply to all situations and not just pedestrians/bicycles/[other singlular topic of the moment]. Proper safety training in school would be beneficial to other road users as well. After all, it's hard to be safe when you're ignorant. Even more so if both parties are.
Zak 4y ago
Right now, the incentive is opposite: bigger cars get a break on fuel economy standards. We could start by removing that. US fuel economy standards are, as I understand it on a sort of cap and trade model with respect to a car maker's average fuel economy. Much of Tesla's profit comes from selling fuel economy credits. The result of removing the break larger cars get wouldn't be that they all disappear, but their prices would trend upward.

loeg 4y ago

Don't need to ban, just make them more expensive in proportion to their danger to society. Activity that is economical at higher cost will continue to use the big trucks.

r00fus 4y ago
In addition to removing the light-truck loophole, vehicle registration should incur much higher fees for high weight vehicles. Perhaps a sliding scale. This would allow states to recoup some money lost to gas taxes by EVs.

crooked-v 4y ago

Just getting rid of the "light truck" loophole in standards would immediately do a lot.

fooker 4y ago
This kind of measures usually have a really negative effect. Every car designed afterwards will try to be as close to the allowed limit as possible, eventually successfully lobbying for the limit to be increased. Public policy is not a common sense topic, no matter how easy it seems to have an opinion.

fatneckbeard 4y ago

yeah ive been riding bicycles 30 years. what we want is separate bike roads, bike crosses, bike parking, like the Netherlands, we do not want some giant police movement to regulate truck sizes. this is like the definition of why liberals cannot win elections. the first instinct is never to solve problems, it is to find some 'wrongdoer' and punish them.

_dain_ 4y ago
there really does have to be something done about truck sizes though, they're objectively a hazard to pedestrians because the driver can see less. they're a nuisance in cities because they exceed the standard size of parking spaces, they cause more wear on the roads, and increase congestion.
mhalle 4y ago
Except that pedestrians face the same or greater risks than bicyclists from vehicles from higher front ends. The biggest challenge is that pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers tend to live, work, and shop in the same locations. Even with separate facilities (sidewalks, cycle tracks), there will be conflicts (intersections and driveways). Lack of visibility and a disparity of mass and velocity are always going to be hazardous at these conflict points.
version_five 4y ago
Thank you for this comment. I (as a large SUV driver) would be happy to have my tax dollars diverted to separate bike routes, with sane traffic signals, that let drivers and cyclists safely move around. There's way to much ideology involved, and not enough pragmatism.
MichaelGlass 4y ago
To be clear, “we” the cyclists want cars to be prohibitively expensive in cities. Presumably we the cyclists aren’t so homogenous.
eyelidlessness 4y ago
I’ve been an avid cyclist most of my adult life. I’m all for separated bike infrastructure, and it would certainly save lives. But it doesn’t address the actual problem: the enlarging of vehicles and reduction of line of sight for drivers is a danger to everyone. I’m also an even more avid pedestrian. I routinely encounter drivers who struggle to see me over their hood, or even the increasingly high floor for windows in auto designs almost across the board. I’m above average height for US men, but I’ve even had to navigate around trucks with hoods so tall it would be nearly if not totally impossible for a driver to see me at all, much less see my pup. I’m not exaggerating, I walked across an intersection just the other day where I had to stand on my toes to see if a driver was even at the wheel in a huge truck stopped at a stop sign, while simultaneously forcibly shuffling my pup ahead of me so the potential driver wouldn’t see me clear the intersection and assume that’s all there is to it. All the while, I was imagining what would happen if there was a driver at the wheel and we couldn’t make all of the necessary communications for a safe crossing. This truck wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, the intersection wasn’t either. The experience is even more common for navigating around vehicles in reverse. I’m not going to make any policy suggestions, and I don’t care about how this affects elections or relative success of any political perspective. I will just say that balancing public safety without requiring automobile accommodations for it is inherently untenable.

cscurmudgeon 4y ago

The sane solution: increase density lowering need for cars. But rich NIMBYies (who are often the cyclists) won't let that happen. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/11/16/american-cycling-has-racism-problem/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/11/16/american-c...