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Certainly in the US these days, anything that isn't an SUV is unsafe (for the occupants) in traffic. It's a deadly arms race to get as big as you can. The littl

Certainly in the US these days, anything that isn't an SUV is unsafe (for the occupants) in traffic. It's a deadly arms race to get as big as you can. The little Fiat's don't even come up to the door handles on an F-150. > they are quite similar to the packs of racing bikes that always appear in the summer Yes! I have to point this out every time people complain about e-bikes on the local path. It's not the type of bike, it's the mindset and the behavior that is the real problem. Regardless, the police here would never bother doing any enforcement on the path anyway so debates about rules or proposed rules is moot. I don't own an e-bike but I'd love to see more e-bikes around. It's more support for bike infrastructure, parking, etc.

fnimick 3y ago
> It's a deadly arms race to get as big as you can. SUVs too - I'm 3x more likely to die in the same crash if I'm hit by one rather than by a passenger sedan. Of course, the real people hurt are the pedestrians and cyclists who can't participate in the arms race at all. Not to mention that leading everyone to use heavy cars for safety every time they leave the house is catastrophically bad for the environment.
- gruez 3y ago
  >Not to mention that leading everyone to use heavy cars for safety every time they leave the house is catastrophically bad for the environment. It's worse, but hardly "catastrophically bad". >According to Consumer Reports, the three top-selling crossovers in the US in 2018 (Toyota RAV4, Honda CR-V, and Nissan Rogue) return an average of 10% less fuel economy than the top three selling sedan equivalents in the mid-size segment (Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Nissan Altima), but provide almost 1.5 times the cargo space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossover_(automobile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossover_(automobile)
  - fnimick 3y ago
    It's a lot worse than no car at all - which people understandably don't feel comfortable doing when they're surrounded by vehicles with bumpers as high as their chest. I get hit by a sedan, I break my legs, it sucks. I get hit by a crossover, I'm thrown forward from my center of mass and likely under the vehicle. I get hit by an F-150, the hood is at head height and I die.
    - jtriangle 3y ago
      If you run the numbers, getting hit by any car while riding a bike carries with it a fair probability of death or lifelong injury. The forces involved do not lie, and your feelings of getting hit by a compact car and surviving are foolish at best. Bikes simply are not safe when occupying the same space as a vehicle. The solution is not 'make vehicles that can't kill cyclists', the solution is to prevent these two modes of transportation from operating in the same space. Banning bikes from roadways for the safety of cyclists is entirely logical. Building cycle paths separate from roadways is entirely logical. Anything outside of that is an experiment we already have data for, and it means more dead cyclists regardless of how you go about it which to any reasonable person is not an acceptable outcome.
      - fnimick 3y ago
        There's a separate problem here, which is that large heavy cars are not required to be designed in a way that takes the injury to people outside the car (pedestrians, cyclists, or in other cars) into account. This results in people buying heavy cars in order to be "safe" from other people buying heavy cars. And while we can't build thousands of miles of new bike lanes overnight, we can definitely start the process of making new vehicles more safe to other road users today. Both are necessary, IMO. re: injury, sure getting hit is not great, but the SUV is substantially more likely to injure or kill the pedestrian in the same collision. There's lots of data to show this.
        jtriangle 3y ago
        How likely do you find to be an acceptable level of likelihood? For me it's zero, or at least very, very close to it. We're never going to get to zero by complaining that cars are too heavy. It's an ideological dead end. I mean, hell, a tesla, not commonly seen as a large car, weighs over 2 tons. Chassis alone is close to 2 tons by itself. How are you going to make that not kill someone on a bike? Or take, say, the world's lightest production car, the absolutely tiny Caterham Seven 170, which weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000lbs. You and an absurdly heavy bike, a real value brand steel frame special, is like a quarter of that, and, it's not really feasible to say that everyone should drive a small, two seat open cockpit, open wheel roadster. F=MA is unavoidable, you should stop pretending it is, you'll live longer. Then write your local government, or better, show up to the public forums they hold, and lobby for bike paths. Partner with bike shops, get in with the mom groups, have them make donations to pro-bike path politicians. That's how the world works now.
  - ericd 3y ago
    Those are all relatively small, I think they're all lifted sedans. When people are talking about an arms race, they're probably talking about the true SUVs, which are built on truck frames - the Escalades, Suburbans, etc. They're gargantuan compared to a RAV4/CR-V. An Escalade gets 14 mpg city, the RAV4 gets 27 mpg in the city, the hybrid version, 41 mpg.
    - gruez 3y ago
      >When people are talking about an arms race, they're probably talking about the true SUVs, which are built on truck frames - the Escalades, Suburbans, etc. They're gargantuan compared to a RAV4/CR-V. An Escalade gets 14 mpg city, the RAV4 gets 27 mpg in the city, the hybrid version, 41 mpg. The sales data doesn't really show such an arms race is taking place. Eyeballing this chart, SUV sales actually shrank, presumably being cannibalized by crossovers. Pickup sales inched higher but they're still not back to early 2000s levels. https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Updated-Crossover-image.png https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2019...
      - fnimick 3y ago
        Crossovers are still markedly worse to be on the receiving end of a collision from than an ordinary car. That's the problem.
        gruez 3y ago
        Pay attention to the thread. I was only discussing environmental impacts.
berbec 3y ago
> It's a deadly arms race to get as big as you can The only reasonable solution is to mandate the only vehicle allowed to be sold in the USA is the Canyonero. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_Jl5WFQkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_Jl5WFQkA
- manifoldgeo 3y ago
  Top o' the line in utility sports. Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts-- Canyonerooooo!
tasty_freeze 3y ago
> It's a deadly arms race to get as big as you can Every time I hear someone say they like their SUV or mondo pickup truck because it feels safer, I usually reply, "I know what you mean. That is why I stand up when watching movies in the theater -- the view is so much better."
- DiggyJohnson 3y ago
  Do you really say that? I take your point, but the metaphor is ridiculous because the view isn’t even better standing up, and it’s rare to find oneself in such a situation - let alone to find oneself in such a situation and choose to be confrontational.
  - tcfhgj 3y ago
    Actually I have had such situations often, when the head of a person in front obscures a part of the view
  - pmg102 3y ago
    Things changed very rapidly in the seventies with the oil shock, I believe. Cars suddenly shrank. Noone wanted big old bloated barges. Maybe something similar will happen again, ie energy will become expensive.
- thepasswordis 3y ago
  Do you seriously say this? I cannot imagine how insufferable it would be to hear this from somebody. I have kids and I don't care how my SUV makes you feel. Riding a bike is a cool hobby, and my family and I own tons of bikes that we take on the awesome bike paths they have all over our town. Bikes are also a great way to exercise. But they don't really belong on roads. Taking a bike a place it isn't mean to go, then complaining about how unfit for the bike that place is, is absurd. You aren't supposed to stand up in a movie theater. You are supposed to drive your car on the streets that we build specifically for driving cars.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
Aurornis 3y ago
> Certainly in the US these days, anything that isn't an SUV is unsafe (for the occupants) in traffic. Honestly it doesn’t matter if the car weighs 2000lbs or 6000lbs, a recumbent bike is getting crushed either way. I don’t know why you’d bring SUVs up specifically. The same problem exists in any country where bikes and cars occupy the same spaces. US isn’t unique.
- crote 3y ago
  The problem is that you get hit by another car in an accident. Getting hit by an SUV while in a sedan tends to end up a lot worse than getting hit by an SUV while in another SUV. The bumper height mismatch and large weight disparity are serious killers. Of course, the right answer would be to regulate car size, not have everyone buy increasingly large cars because they feel unsafe. Those large SUVs are absolute killers for cyclists and pedestrians, not to mention that they are actually less safe than a sedan due to the high center of mass creating a rollover problem.
  - frumper 3y ago
    People buy SUVs because they’re comfortable. You are more upright, have more space, car seats fit, you can haul around your junk without thinking or planning. Most people driving SUVs have not and will never kill a cyclist or pedestrian.
    - franga2000 3y ago
      > Most people driving SUVs have not and will never kill a cyclist or pedestrian. But far more have/will compared to those driving normal cars (including comfortable ones that fit car seats and plenty of junk).
      - yostrovs 3y ago
        I was hit by a bicyclist once. He could have chosen to walk, but instead he chose to ride at something like 25mph down the same path as I was walking. He saved a few minutes. A lot more people get injured from bicycles than from safety minded pedestrians.
sneak 3y ago
> Certainly in the US these days, anything that isn't an SUV is unsafe (for the occupants) in traffic This is false. Bigger does not equate to safer.
- franga2000 3y ago
  It's not as much about size, mainly bumper height from what I understand. An SUV hitting anything smaller will essentially always end worse for the smaller car than small car vs small car or SUV vs SUV. And since there are so many SUVs out there, smaller cars are always in danger.
  - tornato7 3y ago
    Size is an important factor because the extra crush room allows for more gradual deceleration in a crash. Mass is an important factor because in an inelastic collision, the lighter object will experience greater G-forces.

fnimick 3y ago

> It's a deadly arms race to get as big as you can. SUVs too - I'm 3x more likely to die in the same crash if I'm hit by one rather than by a passenger sedan. Of course, the real people hurt are the pedestrians and cyclists who can't participate in the arms race at all. Not to mention that leading everyone to use heavy cars for safety every time they leave the house is catastrophically bad for the environment.

gruez 3y ago
>Not to mention that leading everyone to use heavy cars for safety every time they leave the house is catastrophically bad for the environment. It's worse, but hardly "catastrophically bad". >According to Consumer Reports, the three top-selling crossovers in the US in 2018 (Toyota RAV4, Honda CR-V, and Nissan Rogue) return an average of 10% less fuel economy than the top three selling sedan equivalents in the mid-size segment (Toyota Camry, Honda Accord, Nissan Altima), but provide almost 1.5 times the cargo space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossover_(automobile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossover_(automobile)
- fnimick 3y ago
  It's a lot worse than no car at all - which people understandably don't feel comfortable doing when they're surrounded by vehicles with bumpers as high as their chest. I get hit by a sedan, I break my legs, it sucks. I get hit by a crossover, I'm thrown forward from my center of mass and likely under the vehicle. I get hit by an F-150, the hood is at head height and I die.
  - jtriangle 3y ago
    If you run the numbers, getting hit by any car while riding a bike carries with it a fair probability of death or lifelong injury. The forces involved do not lie, and your feelings of getting hit by a compact car and surviving are foolish at best. Bikes simply are not safe when occupying the same space as a vehicle. The solution is not 'make vehicles that can't kill cyclists', the solution is to prevent these two modes of transportation from operating in the same space. Banning bikes from roadways for the safety of cyclists is entirely logical. Building cycle paths separate from roadways is entirely logical. Anything outside of that is an experiment we already have data for, and it means more dead cyclists regardless of how you go about it which to any reasonable person is not an acceptable outcome.
    - fnimick 3y ago
      There's a separate problem here, which is that large heavy cars are not required to be designed in a way that takes the injury to people outside the car (pedestrians, cyclists, or in other cars) into account. This results in people buying heavy cars in order to be "safe" from other people buying heavy cars. And while we can't build thousands of miles of new bike lanes overnight, we can definitely start the process of making new vehicles more safe to other road users today. Both are necessary, IMO. re: injury, sure getting hit is not great, but the SUV is substantially more likely to injure or kill the pedestrian in the same collision. There's lots of data to show this.
      - jtriangle 3y ago
        How likely do you find to be an acceptable level of likelihood? For me it's zero, or at least very, very close to it. We're never going to get to zero by complaining that cars are too heavy. It's an ideological dead end. I mean, hell, a tesla, not commonly seen as a large car, weighs over 2 tons. Chassis alone is close to 2 tons by itself. How are you going to make that not kill someone on a bike? Or take, say, the world's lightest production car, the absolutely tiny Caterham Seven 170, which weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 1000lbs. You and an absurdly heavy bike, a real value brand steel frame special, is like a quarter of that, and, it's not really feasible to say that everyone should drive a small, two seat open cockpit, open wheel roadster. F=MA is unavoidable, you should stop pretending it is, you'll live longer. Then write your local government, or better, show up to the public forums they hold, and lobby for bike paths. Partner with bike shops, get in with the mom groups, have them make donations to pro-bike path politicians. That's how the world works now.
- ericd 3y ago
  Those are all relatively small, I think they're all lifted sedans. When people are talking about an arms race, they're probably talking about the true SUVs, which are built on truck frames - the Escalades, Suburbans, etc. They're gargantuan compared to a RAV4/CR-V. An Escalade gets 14 mpg city, the RAV4 gets 27 mpg in the city, the hybrid version, 41 mpg.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >When people are talking about an arms race, they're probably talking about the true SUVs, which are built on truck frames - the Escalades, Suburbans, etc. They're gargantuan compared to a RAV4/CR-V. An Escalade gets 14 mpg city, the RAV4 gets 27 mpg in the city, the hybrid version, 41 mpg. The sales data doesn't really show such an arms race is taking place. Eyeballing this chart, SUV sales actually shrank, presumably being cannibalized by crossovers. Pickup sales inched higher but they're still not back to early 2000s levels. https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Updated-Crossover-image.png https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/wp-content/uploads/2019...
    - fnimick 3y ago
      Crossovers are still markedly worse to be on the receiving end of a collision from than an ordinary car. That's the problem.
      - gruez 3y ago
        Pay attention to the thread. I was only discussing environmental impacts.

berbec 3y ago

> It's a deadly arms race to get as big as you can The only reasonable solution is to mandate the only vehicle allowed to be sold in the USA is the Canyonero. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_Jl5WFQkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_Jl5WFQkA

manifoldgeo 3y ago
Top o' the line in utility sports. Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts-- Canyonerooooo!

tasty_freeze 3y ago

> It's a deadly arms race to get as big as you can Every time I hear someone say they like their SUV or mondo pickup truck because it feels safer, I usually reply, "I know what you mean. That is why I stand up when watching movies in the theater -- the view is so much better."

DiggyJohnson 3y ago
Do you really say that? I take your point, but the metaphor is ridiculous because the view isn’t even better standing up, and it’s rare to find oneself in such a situation - let alone to find oneself in such a situation and choose to be confrontational.
- tcfhgj 3y ago
  Actually I have had such situations often, when the head of a person in front obscures a part of the view
- pmg102 3y ago
  Things changed very rapidly in the seventies with the oil shock, I believe. Cars suddenly shrank. Noone wanted big old bloated barges. Maybe something similar will happen again, ie energy will become expensive.
thepasswordis 3y ago
Do you seriously say this? I cannot imagine how insufferable it would be to hear this from somebody. I have kids and I don't care how my SUV makes you feel. Riding a bike is a cool hobby, and my family and I own tons of bikes that we take on the awesome bike paths they have all over our town. Bikes are also a great way to exercise. But they don't really belong on roads. Taking a bike a place it isn't mean to go, then complaining about how unfit for the bike that place is, is absurd. You aren't supposed to stand up in a movie theater. You are supposed to drive your car on the streets that we build specifically for driving cars.
- Dylan16807 3y ago

Aurornis 3y ago

> Certainly in the US these days, anything that isn't an SUV is unsafe (for the occupants) in traffic. Honestly it doesn’t matter if the car weighs 2000lbs or 6000lbs, a recumbent bike is getting crushed either way. I don’t know why you’d bring SUVs up specifically. The same problem exists in any country where bikes and cars occupy the same spaces. US isn’t unique.

crote 3y ago
The problem is that you get hit by another car in an accident. Getting hit by an SUV while in a sedan tends to end up a lot worse than getting hit by an SUV while in another SUV. The bumper height mismatch and large weight disparity are serious killers. Of course, the right answer would be to regulate car size, not have everyone buy increasingly large cars because they feel unsafe. Those large SUVs are absolute killers for cyclists and pedestrians, not to mention that they are actually less safe than a sedan due to the high center of mass creating a rollover problem.
- frumper 3y ago
  People buy SUVs because they’re comfortable. You are more upright, have more space, car seats fit, you can haul around your junk without thinking or planning. Most people driving SUVs have not and will never kill a cyclist or pedestrian.
  - franga2000 3y ago
    > Most people driving SUVs have not and will never kill a cyclist or pedestrian. But far more have/will compared to those driving normal cars (including comfortable ones that fit car seats and plenty of junk).
    - yostrovs 3y ago
      I was hit by a bicyclist once. He could have chosen to walk, but instead he chose to ride at something like 25mph down the same path as I was walking. He saved a few minutes. A lot more people get injured from bicycles than from safety minded pedestrians.

sneak 3y ago

> Certainly in the US these days, anything that isn't an SUV is unsafe (for the occupants) in traffic This is false. Bigger does not equate to safer.

franga2000 3y ago
It's not as much about size, mainly bumper height from what I understand. An SUV hitting anything smaller will essentially always end worse for the smaller car than small car vs small car or SUV vs SUV. And since there are so many SUVs out there, smaller cars are always in danger.
- tornato7 3y ago
  Size is an important factor because the extra crush room allows for more gradual deceleration in a crash. Mass is an important factor because in an inelastic collision, the lighter object will experience greater G-forces.