3 ms·

Why? What do you care what he drives?

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2020-traffic-crash-data-fatalities https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2020-traffic-crash-data... > The estimated number of police-reported crashes in 2020 decreased by 22% as compared to 2019, and the estimated number of people injured declined by 17%. > While the number of crashes and traffic injuries declined overall, fatal crashes increased by 6.8%. It's at least a somewhat common belief that the 6.8% increase of fatal crashes despite a decrease in total crashes is caused by a perceived increase of the average size of vehicles on the road. A minivan is not an American-sized pickup truck which are commonly seen as unsafe for other drivers.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
yamtaddle 4y ago
Cars much bigger, heavier, and with worse visibility than necessary, make the roads more dangerous for everyone else—motorists, bicyclists, pedestrians, everyone. The whole thing's turning into an expensive, dangerous game of prisoner's dilemma. It's best if everyone buys exactly as much car as they need, but anyone who "defects" and buys a bigger, heavier car is safer than everyone else, while making everyone else a little less-safe. Iterate for a few decades and you get the current situation. However, begging individuals to behave differently isn't going to fix the problem. Certainly not in the US.
- nicbou 4y ago
  You need to rethink the incentives. Big, wasteful cars have no business being as cheap as a small family car. This was not accidental.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    Oh, for sure. The old-school conservative solution, from back before "conservative" meant "simply don't try to do good things, at all" (at least, in the US) would have been to try to price in the added risk to others (and other externalities, like extra road-wear) to discourage having too-large vehicles. I think that could work. Never gonna happen, because too many people think discouraging choices that make public roads more dangerous, or simply paying for costs they impose on others through their choices, is outright tyranny, but hey, it's a nice idea.
    - dang 4y ago
      Please don't go back to posting ideological flamewar comments. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for, and you've mostly been doing a pretty good job of avoiding it (thank you!) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
anigbrowl 4y ago
Because we have to share the road with other people's vehicles, and bad drivers in giant pickups are a hazard to others' health.
seabird 4y ago
The American car market is flooded with shitty crossovers because people don't have the balls to just rock the minivan when they hit that point in their life. The entire SUV segment up until you reach 9-seaters doesn't have a great reason to exist at the market share it does, and the situation will continue until people grow out of the delusion that they're not uncool yet because they bought a specific class of bad vehicle.

https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2020-traffic-crash-data-fatalities https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/2020-traffic-crash-data... > The estimated number of police-reported crashes in 2020 decreased by 22% as compared to 2019, and the estimated number of people injured declined by 17%. > While the number of crashes and traffic injuries declined overall, fatal crashes increased by 6.8%. It's at least a somewhat common belief that the 6.8% increase of fatal crashes despite a decrease in total crashes is caused by a perceived increase of the average size of vehicles on the road. A minivan is not an American-sized pickup truck which are commonly seen as unsafe for other drivers.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

yamtaddle 4y ago

Cars much bigger, heavier, and with worse visibility than necessary, make the roads more dangerous for everyone else—motorists, bicyclists, pedestrians, everyone. The whole thing's turning into an expensive, dangerous game of prisoner's dilemma. It's best if everyone buys exactly as much car as they need, but anyone who "defects" and buys a bigger, heavier car is safer than everyone else, while making everyone else a little less-safe. Iterate for a few decades and you get the current situation. However, begging individuals to behave differently isn't going to fix the problem. Certainly not in the US.

nicbou 4y ago
You need to rethink the incentives. Big, wasteful cars have no business being as cheap as a small family car. This was not accidental.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  Oh, for sure. The old-school conservative solution, from back before "conservative" meant "simply don't try to do good things, at all" (at least, in the US) would have been to try to price in the added risk to others (and other externalities, like extra road-wear) to discourage having too-large vehicles. I think that could work. Never gonna happen, because too many people think discouraging choices that make public roads more dangerous, or simply paying for costs they impose on others through their choices, is outright tyranny, but hey, it's a nice idea.
  - dang 4y ago
    Please don't go back to posting ideological flamewar comments. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for, and you've mostly been doing a pretty good job of avoiding it (thank you!) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

anigbrowl 4y ago

Because we have to share the road with other people's vehicles, and bad drivers in giant pickups are a hazard to others' health.

seabird 4y ago

The American car market is flooded with shitty crossovers because people don't have the balls to just rock the minivan when they hit that point in their life. The entire SUV segment up until you reach 9-seaters doesn't have a great reason to exist at the market share it does, and the situation will continue until people grow out of the delusion that they're not uncool yet because they bought a specific class of bad vehicle.