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A good counterweight to the seemingly common view that anything smaller than a tank and cannot do 60mph backwards is emasculating. There are too many large, he

A good counterweight to the seemingly common view that anything smaller than a tank and cannot do 60mph backwards is emasculating. There are too many large, heavy, dangerous, expensive 'cars' on the roads everywhere in the world. I can drive. I do not own a car, and I have set up my life not to need one (nor nee to fill my brain with rubbish about insurance etc), but I would consider one of these. I could even charge it from my roof or off-grid PV.

wufufufu 3y ago
What about safety during accidents? It's better to be driving a heavier car in that case.
- westmeal 3y ago
  It kind of depends on the chassis' structure rather than weight. That being said the only thing more weight accomplishes is the impact is worse for anyone that isn't you.
- DamonHD 3y ago
  It is better for the car occupants to be in a heavier car. IIRC, US road deaths of people outside the car have doubled over the last ~20Y because of the rise of the SUV and its ilk. European safety rules take into account people outside the car in the notion of 'safety'; I don't think that US safety rules do.
bcrl 3y ago
Cars have gotten larger because of changes in recent years to emissions laws: larger cars are permitted to have greater emissions. Naturally, this results in auto manufacturers building larger cars that are easier to make compliant to emissions laws. Force emissions to be lower and the size of vehicles will decrease. I do find it hilarious that my dad's old F150 truck made back in the 1970s is way smaller than modern trucks.
- doubled112 3y ago
  Probably smaller then a new “small” pickup truck, like the recent Ford Ranger?
xhkkffbf 3y ago
A friend of mine likes to point out that Formula 1 cars are very light and the drivers aren't emasculated. But somehow this detail doesn't make it to the car designers in Detroit.
4death4 3y ago
As a general rule, one should question their beliefs if their beliefs require some type of derogatory state of mind about some other, disagreeable group. For instance, what is more likely: people drive large cars en masse because they have fragile egos, or large cars are solving some problem they have, namely they have a lot of stuff to carry around? As a personal anecdote: after the first kid, I had to ditch my tiny car for something that would accommodate all the stuff that comes with a kid. Now that we have a second on the way, I realize the small SUV we got is too small.
- goosedragons 3y ago
  C. It's necessary to drive a car because of poor societal choices made over the past 100 years. When you were a kid, how big was your parents' cars?
  - 4death4 3y ago
    Whether or not large cars are a modern, mostly unnecessary, luxury is a separate question from the assertion made by OP, which is that large car usage is primarily driven by feelings of personal insecurity. My point is that you can never hope to solve a problem if you don’t even understand the fundamental circumstances that caused the problem to arise. Of course, not every person can know every thing, but it’s a good signal that you might be operating under false pretenses if your argument requires people to act in some derogatory way.
    - DamonHD 3y ago
      Most of the words that I used such as large and dangerous are borne out by published official stats. And nothing so dramatically changed about the geometry or demographics of (say) the US or UK as to require massive rapid inflation in car volumne and mass. I have a whole separate gripe about people expecting more and more public land for free (a single parking space is worth ~£50k around me and should be rented out for ~£3k/year at market rates), and over two stories could accommodate one person. My house is being bulldozed soon in part because there was no other way to get people to allow increased residential density and stop using three parking spaces per household on average. In an place where my familiy doesn't even need one. Car advertising seems to be entirely about ego and fantasy, the little that I see. And SUVs etc are far more profitable for them, this again is unemotionally clear. The fact that they are prepared to kill more pedestrians, damage the planet, and be complicit in the theft of public space, all for a quick buck, is the reason for my bile.
sneed_chucker 3y ago
This will not change without laws. People want big cars, for ego, for convenience, for perceived safety. The US, for decades now, has laws on the books which make it more cost effective for manufacturers to make big, heavy cars. Look up the light truck exemption. If everyone drives a huge car, you begin to feel less safe in a normal sized car. This means that even people who wouldn't normally drive a truck or SUV begin gravitating towards them because they don't want to turn into pink paste when a 19 year old phone addicted driver in a Ram 3500 slams into them going 60mph on a residential road.

wufufufu 3y ago

What about safety during accidents? It's better to be driving a heavier car in that case.

westmeal 3y ago
It kind of depends on the chassis' structure rather than weight. That being said the only thing more weight accomplishes is the impact is worse for anyone that isn't you.
DamonHD 3y ago
It is better for the car occupants to be in a heavier car. IIRC, US road deaths of people outside the car have doubled over the last ~20Y because of the rise of the SUV and its ilk. European safety rules take into account people outside the car in the notion of 'safety'; I don't think that US safety rules do.

bcrl 3y ago

Cars have gotten larger because of changes in recent years to emissions laws: larger cars are permitted to have greater emissions. Naturally, this results in auto manufacturers building larger cars that are easier to make compliant to emissions laws. Force emissions to be lower and the size of vehicles will decrease. I do find it hilarious that my dad's old F150 truck made back in the 1970s is way smaller than modern trucks.

doubled112 3y ago
Probably smaller then a new “small” pickup truck, like the recent Ford Ranger?

xhkkffbf 3y ago

A friend of mine likes to point out that Formula 1 cars are very light and the drivers aren't emasculated. But somehow this detail doesn't make it to the car designers in Detroit.

4death4 3y ago

As a general rule, one should question their beliefs if their beliefs require some type of derogatory state of mind about some other, disagreeable group. For instance, what is more likely: people drive large cars en masse because they have fragile egos, or large cars are solving some problem they have, namely they have a lot of stuff to carry around? As a personal anecdote: after the first kid, I had to ditch my tiny car for something that would accommodate all the stuff that comes with a kid. Now that we have a second on the way, I realize the small SUV we got is too small.

goosedragons 3y ago
C. It's necessary to drive a car because of poor societal choices made over the past 100 years. When you were a kid, how big was your parents' cars?
- 4death4 3y ago
  Whether or not large cars are a modern, mostly unnecessary, luxury is a separate question from the assertion made by OP, which is that large car usage is primarily driven by feelings of personal insecurity. My point is that you can never hope to solve a problem if you don’t even understand the fundamental circumstances that caused the problem to arise. Of course, not every person can know every thing, but it’s a good signal that you might be operating under false pretenses if your argument requires people to act in some derogatory way.
  - DamonHD 3y ago
    Most of the words that I used such as large and dangerous are borne out by published official stats. And nothing so dramatically changed about the geometry or demographics of (say) the US or UK as to require massive rapid inflation in car volumne and mass. I have a whole separate gripe about people expecting more and more public land for free (a single parking space is worth ~£50k around me and should be rented out for ~£3k/year at market rates), and over two stories could accommodate one person. My house is being bulldozed soon in part because there was no other way to get people to allow increased residential density and stop using three parking spaces per household on average. In an place where my familiy doesn't even need one. Car advertising seems to be entirely about ego and fantasy, the little that I see. And SUVs etc are far more profitable for them, this again is unemotionally clear. The fact that they are prepared to kill more pedestrians, damage the planet, and be complicit in the theft of public space, all for a quick buck, is the reason for my bile.

sneed_chucker 3y ago

This will not change without laws. People want big cars, for ego, for convenience, for perceived safety. The US, for decades now, has laws on the books which make it more cost effective for manufacturers to make big, heavy cars. Look up the light truck exemption. If everyone drives a huge car, you begin to feel less safe in a normal sized car. This means that even people who wouldn't normally drive a truck or SUV begin gravitating towards them because they don't want to turn into pink paste when a 19 year old phone addicted driver in a Ram 3500 slams into them going 60mph on a residential road.