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In a big picture, this makes sense. You can load the cars with safety features, but it doesn't change the fact that these cars are very heavy, very fast, and lo

In a big picture, this makes sense. You can load the cars with safety features, but it doesn't change the fact that these cars are very heavy, very fast, and loaded with features that reward distracted driving. In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
In a bigger picture, cars are a bad solution to the problem of transportation at scale, and really always have been. As safety features go up, complacency goes up, and to be blunt that's combining with the fact that drivers are getting consistently worse overall at the skill anyway. Between EV's that are much, much heavier than ICE cars and SUVs/Trucks that are much larger than they need to be, vehicles themselves, despite having more safety features than ever, are also better at killing that they've been at a long time too. We really need to get serious about improving our transportation infrastructure.
- randomdata 2y ago
  > We really need to get serious about improving our transportation infrastructure. Better yet, we really need to consider urbanization. That way everything you need is right there by your own two feet. No need for any extra special transportation at all. It seems people have a burning desire to live the rural lifestyle, though, even in so-called cities. I'm not sure we can actually overcome that pressure.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Many of us simply don't want to live in expensive urbanized environments (especially in more desirable ones)--at least at many points in our lives, so yeah no.
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      I mean the problem isn't those who don't want to live in cities nor is it those who want to live in cities: the problem is the suburbs, which is where those two meet. People who aren't in and do not desire an actual rural lifestyle where one has a standalone home on a large plot of land in the middle of nowhere, but also don't want a condo. They want their own little plot of land, with a small yard, and a standalone home. And like, same. That's also me. But the problem is the actual costs of that style of home are incredibly, heavily subsidized by the cities they surround and indeed even the rural areas they border, because suburbs are just... a bad goddamn way to house people. They're incredibly inefficient, basically require your own personal car, require the most infrastructure build-out for the smallest population, require the largest footprint of services over the largest area to serve the smallest number of people, etc. etc. And like, I don't think it's unreasonable to say if you want to live this way, that's fine, but then you need to actually pay for it. Your property taxes need to reflect how much it actually costs to serve your property, to build the huge number of roads needed to access it, to maintain those roads, to maintain the electrical grids, to maintain the water and sewage services, to bus kids to schools, etc. etc. etc. And yeah that's going to make suburbs WAY less appealing because they're going to be fucking expensive but like, the alternative is, again, everyone wanting that, and not paying for it. The dense urban centers they surround absolutely hemorrhage money supporting the suburbs around them.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        Around where I live (greater Boston metro) most of the tech jobs are actually out in the suburbs/exurbubs. There were basically no tech jobs in the city ~20 years ago any longer. (It's mostly only changed with the establishment of of satellite offices of some west coast companies.)
        ToucanLoucan 2y ago
        With respect, it doesn't matter. Suburbs cost far more than they bring in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0
      - ghaff 2y ago
    - HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
      Urbanization decreases costs.
      - rufus_foreman 2y ago
        How much does 160 acres of land cost in rural Kansas? Maybe $500,000? How much does 160 acres of land cost in Manhattan? Maybe $800,000,000? Urbanization decreases some costs and increases others.
  - ar_lan 2y ago
    > It seems people have a burning desire to live the rural lifestyle, though, even in so-called cities. I just want like... to not be stacked like a sardine for $3500/mo. I would gladly take a rural lifestyle if I could find a job that would support it.
    - randomdata 2y ago
      Stacked like a sardine for $3,500/mo, yet still have to travel long distances to do anything. The curse of the wannabe rural city. But, as people want to (or at least want to pretend to) live in a rural area, change is unlikely.
    - oblio 2y ago
      This is a colossal failure for humanity, primarily due to home ownership as an investment vehicle, plus regulatory capture pushed by the car companies and oil and gas companies. There is no technical reason we can't have livable, quiet and spacious apartments, where multiple apartment buildings share a huge, enclosed backyard (almost park-like, even), a setup with tons of small shops, pharmacies, easy access to everything, etc. Plus you can also have access to large parks, in a suburb you'd never have access to those, just your limited backyard. But most places will never have that...
      - nradov 2y ago
        Even nice apartments are pretty miserable places to live if you have multiple small children, or engage in hobbies or activities that require much equipment. Imagine coming home to your apartment with a muddy mountain bike. Do you haul it up to the 4th floor in the elevator and wash it in your shower? It's possible to make it work but living in a single-family home (or townhouse with attached garage) sure makes regular life a lot easier.
        oblio 2y ago
        > Imagine coming home to your apartment with a muddy mountain bike. Do you haul it up to the 4th floor in the elevator and wash it in your shower? We have the tech for this, we could have literal multi-bike sheds/parking garages and all that's needed is 1 (ONE) water source with a hose inside. As I said, failure on the part of our species :-) In my city there are actually a few public bike washing stations, so the game plan in this case would be just to bike that way before coming home.
  - Gibbon1 2y ago
    Suburbia is this thing like commuting in a car that's great as long as everyone isn't also trying to do it.
  - p_j_w 2y ago
    Even with heavy urbanization you'll need some form of transit on top of walking. Have you ever visited any really big cities (eg. Tokyo)? Every time I'm in one, I get the impression they would grind to a standstill without their mass transit systems.
    - randomdata 2y ago
      > Have you ever visited any really big cities (eg. Tokyo) Yes, these are the rural areas of which we speak. Everything gets spread out and then you're stuck travelling long distances to do anything, just like those who live in actual rural areas. There is no question that transportation is necessary in a rural area. A proper urban environment, however, puts everything right there in a short distance. No need to ever travel beyond where your feet can take you. That's the whole reason for living so close to other people. But it's clear that people want to live in (or pretend to live in) rural areas. It seems to be in our nature. As such, there is a lot of pressure to maintain the way things are. Hence the ill-conceived cries for better transportation to maintain the rural way of life instead of actually embracing urbanity.
      - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
        I would say that's better characterized as an opposition to urbanization that's designed for and presumes the ownership of cars by those who live there, and to that I heartily agree! Gridlock-bound US cities are a nightmare to navigate, but again, that is not the fault of the city, that is also the fault of the car and how inefficient it is as a transport solution. If cars simply didn't exist, our cities would not, could never have, been designed the way they are, in any way.
        randomdata 2y ago
        > If cars simply didn't exist, our cities would not, could never have, been designed the way they are, in any way. Nah. Many cities long predate the car. They absolutely were designed in the same way they are still found now, aside from what are now roads were squares for people to walk in. Return the road back to being a square and nobody would be able to recognize that there was a car era. But, so long as the people want to live a rural lifestyle, good luck…
- heywire 2y ago
  I would wager that most people don’t want to use public transit regularly. I know I certainly don’t.
  - gorbachev 2y ago
    That's because most Americans haven't seen a public transport service that works well. Visit or live in a major European city for a while and you are likely change your tune.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    Your desire to not be inconvenienced is not as important as the lives of other people who are being killed unnecessarily for it. That being said, to be clear, I don't think we need to make driving illegal or whatever. I think a TON of people would happily not be saddled with the expense of owning a car or the task of driving if there were reasonable alternatives on offer, which in the few pockets of the US that actually have decent mass transit, is broadly the case.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      That said, I drove into a nearby city after dark which is increasingly early last night. There are no reasonable alternatives--I will for a 9-5 event but just doesn't work for the evening. There's a decent mass transit system including commuter rail but it it's just not organized around coming in at 5pm. It's chaos with cars/cycles/escooters/pedestrians often randomly crossing streets, poor visibility, etc. I mostly just don't go in any longer.
  - afavour 2y ago
    I think a lot of people would be happy to use it if it was convenient and reliable. I live in NYC and haven’t had to drive to/from work in over a decade. I consider the subway ride a vast, vast improvement over driving… but only when the subway works right.
    - nomel 2y ago
      The vast majority of people I talk to, including myself, don't use public transportation for: 1. Time. For example, my commute is 25 minutes, but 2 hours ride and three mile walk by public transport. 2. Safety, intimately tied to the homeless problem. 3. Cleanliness. In my experience, related to #2, and the fact that government institutions are incapable of caring about user experience, because they get funding regardless. Matted, stained fabric seat cushions, and dried whatever caked on the floor. There's nothing better or remotely alluring about public transportation for the vast majority of people (as shown by gridlock traffic).
- toast0 2y ago
  > In a bigger picture, cars are a bad solution to the problem of transportation at scale They're not a great solution to transportation at scale, but they're pretty good at small volume point to point traffic. There's not enough people going my way on most of my trips to make transportation at scale worthwhile. Ferries work well for part of many of my trips, but I can take a car on the ferry to deal with the lack of scale on either side. I could sometimes take a bus to the ferry, walk to light rail and take light rail to the airport. But the bus only runs during commute times, so that impacts viable flight times, and the walk to the light rail got pretty sketchy in the past several years and light rail itself can be sketchy too. Most of my cars run fine any time of day, although peak traffic is annoying, and I'm dealing with lighting issues on one so I can't take it out unless I know I'll be home before dusk.
- thebruce87m 2y ago
  > much, much heavier https://thedriven.io/2024/05/03/are-evs-really-much-heavier-than-their-ice-equivalents/amp/ https://thedriven.io/2024/05/03/are-evs-really-much-heavier-... > full electric versions are only around 10% to 15% heavier than their direct ICE equivalent I don’t think “much, much” should be used when we are talking 10-15%. This will mislead people. There are outliers of course.
littlestymaar 2y ago
> You can load the cars with safety features, but it doesn't change the fact that these cars are very heavy Being heavy is actually a safety feature of sort (but just for the people inside the car, it increases overall fatality).
- Gigachad 2y ago
  Trees are anchored to the ground. Being heavier just reduces your ability to stop.
  - rich_sasha 2y ago
    Maybe that's good when hitting a tree? Slower deceleration, less force.
    - jkaptur 2y ago
      I think they meant that it's more difficult to stop before beginning to impact the tree.
      - rich_sasha 2y ago
        Still. If I'm going to hit a tree, I'd rather drive a tank than a motorbike.
        JasonSage 2y ago
        Cars have crumple zones which a motorbike does not. A lighter car requires less work from the crumple zone to decelerate the car into non-fatal territory than a heavy car.
  - bastloing 2y ago
    Decreases your tendency to flip over. I'm astonished by all the dashcam videos out there showing collisions, usually the first thing an ice car does is flip over. Not EVs though.
dpats 2y ago
> In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. Do you have a source on that?
- legitster 2y ago
  > From 2016 to 2018 an average of 19,158 fatalities resulted from roadway departures, which is 51 percent of all traffic fatalities in the United States. https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD
  - gamblor956 2y ago
    FTL: "FHWA defines a roadway departure (RwD) crash as a crash which occurs after a vehicle crosses an edge line or a center line, or otherwise leaves the traveled way. Another term our partners often use is lane departure, which is synonymous with RwD, since both include head-on collisions when a vehicle enters an opposing lane of traffic." Road departure fatalities are high because of head-on collisions, not because there is an epidemic of people crashing into trees along the side of the road. If you follow the links on the cited page, they clearly show that head-on crashes result in more fatalities than tree+utility pole crashes.
kevinqi 2y ago
Aside from the distracted driving part, which is real, there are two physical aspects of the model 3 that I find to be safety issues as well-- the two front windshield beams are thick and add a sort of blind spot, and the side mirrors don't give you great field of view.
- nomel 2y ago
  Same with my older Toyota. They stuffed airbags in them, which is nice, but I've had several times where an adult on a bike is completely obscured, with my passenger having to scream "stop!". After the second time, I now bob my head like a maniac to look around them. Can't wait for displays on pillars, to make them appear transparent.
  - tzs 2y ago
    The pillars on my 2006 CR-V haven't been a problem. Did pillars get bigger on newer cars, or did Honda use smaller pillars, or what? They are wide enough that their horizontal angular width could be larger than the horizontal angular width of a pedestrian more than a couple or so meters away but due to their angle there is plenty of the pedestrian still visible. I spent a while just sitting in a busy parking lot watching people go by and seeing how their visibility changed and I couldn't find any situation where I'd have trouble seeing a pedestrian unless they were far enough away that there was no chance I'd hit them even if I never saw them.
  - kevinqi 2y ago
    yeah I've had a similar experience with a bike and do the head bob thing now too. glad to know it's not just me
- GuB-42 2y ago
  It is a problem with most modern cars, and it is actually for safety reasons. These beams have to support the entire weight of the car in case it flips over in order to protect the occupants.
  - MBCook 2y ago
akira2501 2y ago
> and loaded with features "Ludicrous mode." > the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. It's actually alcohol and drugs. Which is the reason those drivers find themselves in the trees.
- doctorpangloss 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - mcculley 2y ago
    How is California special in that regard? Many states lack the infrastructure or density to allow for proper enjoyment of alcohol.
    - connicpu 2y ago
      Unless you're wealthy enough to live in the core of a major metropolitan area, it's all of the states.
    - aziaziazi 2y ago
      There also clear lack of alcohol enjoyment education. Gather at friends place and stay overnight, carpools and draw a sober Sam, don’t get overdrunk and drink water for the last 90 min of the party, etc… I do agree infras and density is a better option. But lack of infra doesn’t justify to drive drunk.
      - mcculley 2y ago
        I’m not justifying drunk driving. I asked how California is different from other states in this regard.
  - mandymoorefan 2y ago
    North Carolina next question.
  - rich_sasha 2y ago
SoftTalker 2y ago
What makes sense to me is the top 3 cars: Tesla - autopilot that really isn't, gets fooled in many situations, driver lulled into not paying attention, can't react quickly enough when the computer bails, and ends up driving into a bridge abutment at 75mph. Kia - cheap cars built to minimum safety standards driven by young people who aren't very experienced drivers. Buick - cars driven by geriatrics whose declines in vision and reaction speed probably should have resulted in their licenses being revoked five years ago but who still insist on driving themselves.
- vikingerik 2y ago
  I'd also venture that the profile of Tesla drivers is also a factor along with those other two brands. I'd be pretty sure that Tesla owners collectively drive more aggressively than the average car on the road. Teslas aren't being driven by soccer moms and careful grandmas.
  - aziaziazi 2y ago
    Does the insurance cost vary between two cars almost identical in every relevant points but the brand? Not a rhetorical question.
  - duderific 2y ago
    Lots of soccer moms driving Teslas in the Bay Area. Know several myself.
  - buffington 2y ago
    Where I live, I'd estimate that a third of the passenger cars are Teslas. No data to back that up, but that's what I tend to see day to day. The diversity of drivers is significant enough to suggest that "all kinds of people" drive Teslas.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      A third? Wow. Where I am they are not exactly rare but uncommon enough that I still notice them when I see them. I see a few a week I'd guess. Pre-pandemic I knew one person who owned a Tesla. And now... I know two people who own a Tesla, but one of them lives in another country.
jvandonsel 2y ago
Simple solution. Cut down all the trees on the side of the road. You’re welcome.
Mountain_Skies 2y ago
>In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. A decade or so ago the Georgia Department of Transportation tried to do away with the trees between streets and sidewalks because of so many fatalities coming from collisions with trees. Clearing out an "automative recovery zone" as they called it likely would have saved lives of some people in vehicles but of course it would increase the danger to pedestrians, who might or might not be present at that moment. Lots of trade offs in these types of analysis and not all of them are always immediately obvious.
gamblor956 2y ago
In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. This is false. Your cited link (https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD) clearly demonstrates that head-on collisions cause more fatalities than tree+utility pole collisions combined.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago

In a bigger picture, cars are a bad solution to the problem of transportation at scale, and really always have been. As safety features go up, complacency goes up, and to be blunt that's combining with the fact that drivers are getting consistently worse overall at the skill anyway. Between EV's that are much, much heavier than ICE cars and SUVs/Trucks that are much larger than they need to be, vehicles themselves, despite having more safety features than ever, are also better at killing that they've been at a long time too. We really need to get serious about improving our transportation infrastructure.

randomdata 2y ago
> We really need to get serious about improving our transportation infrastructure. Better yet, we really need to consider urbanization. That way everything you need is right there by your own two feet. No need for any extra special transportation at all. It seems people have a burning desire to live the rural lifestyle, though, even in so-called cities. I'm not sure we can actually overcome that pressure.
- ghaff 2y ago
  Many of us simply don't want to live in expensive urbanized environments (especially in more desirable ones)--at least at many points in our lives, so yeah no.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    I mean the problem isn't those who don't want to live in cities nor is it those who want to live in cities: the problem is the suburbs, which is where those two meet. People who aren't in and do not desire an actual rural lifestyle where one has a standalone home on a large plot of land in the middle of nowhere, but also don't want a condo. They want their own little plot of land, with a small yard, and a standalone home. And like, same. That's also me. But the problem is the actual costs of that style of home are incredibly, heavily subsidized by the cities they surround and indeed even the rural areas they border, because suburbs are just... a bad goddamn way to house people. They're incredibly inefficient, basically require your own personal car, require the most infrastructure build-out for the smallest population, require the largest footprint of services over the largest area to serve the smallest number of people, etc. etc. And like, I don't think it's unreasonable to say if you want to live this way, that's fine, but then you need to actually pay for it. Your property taxes need to reflect how much it actually costs to serve your property, to build the huge number of roads needed to access it, to maintain those roads, to maintain the electrical grids, to maintain the water and sewage services, to bus kids to schools, etc. etc. etc. And yeah that's going to make suburbs WAY less appealing because they're going to be fucking expensive but like, the alternative is, again, everyone wanting that, and not paying for it. The dense urban centers they surround absolutely hemorrhage money supporting the suburbs around them.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      Around where I live (greater Boston metro) most of the tech jobs are actually out in the suburbs/exurbubs. There were basically no tech jobs in the city ~20 years ago any longer. (It's mostly only changed with the establishment of of satellite offices of some west coast companies.)
      - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
        With respect, it doesn't matter. Suburbs cost far more than they bring in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0
    - ghaff 2y ago
  - HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
    Urbanization decreases costs.
    - rufus_foreman 2y ago
      How much does 160 acres of land cost in rural Kansas? Maybe $500,000? How much does 160 acres of land cost in Manhattan? Maybe $800,000,000? Urbanization decreases some costs and increases others.
- ar_lan 2y ago
  > It seems people have a burning desire to live the rural lifestyle, though, even in so-called cities. I just want like... to not be stacked like a sardine for $3500/mo. I would gladly take a rural lifestyle if I could find a job that would support it.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    Stacked like a sardine for $3,500/mo, yet still have to travel long distances to do anything. The curse of the wannabe rural city. But, as people want to (or at least want to pretend to) live in a rural area, change is unlikely.
  - oblio 2y ago
    This is a colossal failure for humanity, primarily due to home ownership as an investment vehicle, plus regulatory capture pushed by the car companies and oil and gas companies. There is no technical reason we can't have livable, quiet and spacious apartments, where multiple apartment buildings share a huge, enclosed backyard (almost park-like, even), a setup with tons of small shops, pharmacies, easy access to everything, etc. Plus you can also have access to large parks, in a suburb you'd never have access to those, just your limited backyard. But most places will never have that...
    - nradov 2y ago
      Even nice apartments are pretty miserable places to live if you have multiple small children, or engage in hobbies or activities that require much equipment. Imagine coming home to your apartment with a muddy mountain bike. Do you haul it up to the 4th floor in the elevator and wash it in your shower? It's possible to make it work but living in a single-family home (or townhouse with attached garage) sure makes regular life a lot easier.
      - oblio 2y ago
        > Imagine coming home to your apartment with a muddy mountain bike. Do you haul it up to the 4th floor in the elevator and wash it in your shower? We have the tech for this, we could have literal multi-bike sheds/parking garages and all that's needed is 1 (ONE) water source with a hose inside. As I said, failure on the part of our species :-) In my city there are actually a few public bike washing stations, so the game plan in this case would be just to bike that way before coming home.
- Gibbon1 2y ago
  Suburbia is this thing like commuting in a car that's great as long as everyone isn't also trying to do it.
- p_j_w 2y ago
  Even with heavy urbanization you'll need some form of transit on top of walking. Have you ever visited any really big cities (eg. Tokyo)? Every time I'm in one, I get the impression they would grind to a standstill without their mass transit systems.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    > Have you ever visited any really big cities (eg. Tokyo) Yes, these are the rural areas of which we speak. Everything gets spread out and then you're stuck travelling long distances to do anything, just like those who live in actual rural areas. There is no question that transportation is necessary in a rural area. A proper urban environment, however, puts everything right there in a short distance. No need to ever travel beyond where your feet can take you. That's the whole reason for living so close to other people. But it's clear that people want to live in (or pretend to live in) rural areas. It seems to be in our nature. As such, there is a lot of pressure to maintain the way things are. Hence the ill-conceived cries for better transportation to maintain the rural way of life instead of actually embracing urbanity.
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      I would say that's better characterized as an opposition to urbanization that's designed for and presumes the ownership of cars by those who live there, and to that I heartily agree! Gridlock-bound US cities are a nightmare to navigate, but again, that is not the fault of the city, that is also the fault of the car and how inefficient it is as a transport solution. If cars simply didn't exist, our cities would not, could never have, been designed the way they are, in any way.
      - randomdata 2y ago
        > If cars simply didn't exist, our cities would not, could never have, been designed the way they are, in any way. Nah. Many cities long predate the car. They absolutely were designed in the same way they are still found now, aside from what are now roads were squares for people to walk in. Return the road back to being a square and nobody would be able to recognize that there was a car era. But, so long as the people want to live a rural lifestyle, good luck…
heywire 2y ago
I would wager that most people don’t want to use public transit regularly. I know I certainly don’t.
- gorbachev 2y ago
  That's because most Americans haven't seen a public transport service that works well. Visit or live in a major European city for a while and you are likely change your tune.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  Your desire to not be inconvenienced is not as important as the lives of other people who are being killed unnecessarily for it. That being said, to be clear, I don't think we need to make driving illegal or whatever. I think a TON of people would happily not be saddled with the expense of owning a car or the task of driving if there were reasonable alternatives on offer, which in the few pockets of the US that actually have decent mass transit, is broadly the case.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    That said, I drove into a nearby city after dark which is increasingly early last night. There are no reasonable alternatives--I will for a 9-5 event but just doesn't work for the evening. There's a decent mass transit system including commuter rail but it it's just not organized around coming in at 5pm. It's chaos with cars/cycles/escooters/pedestrians often randomly crossing streets, poor visibility, etc. I mostly just don't go in any longer.
- afavour 2y ago
  I think a lot of people would be happy to use it if it was convenient and reliable. I live in NYC and haven’t had to drive to/from work in over a decade. I consider the subway ride a vast, vast improvement over driving… but only when the subway works right.
  - nomel 2y ago
    The vast majority of people I talk to, including myself, don't use public transportation for: 1. Time. For example, my commute is 25 minutes, but 2 hours ride and three mile walk by public transport. 2. Safety, intimately tied to the homeless problem. 3. Cleanliness. In my experience, related to #2, and the fact that government institutions are incapable of caring about user experience, because they get funding regardless. Matted, stained fabric seat cushions, and dried whatever caked on the floor. There's nothing better or remotely alluring about public transportation for the vast majority of people (as shown by gridlock traffic).
toast0 2y ago
> In a bigger picture, cars are a bad solution to the problem of transportation at scale They're not a great solution to transportation at scale, but they're pretty good at small volume point to point traffic. There's not enough people going my way on most of my trips to make transportation at scale worthwhile. Ferries work well for part of many of my trips, but I can take a car on the ferry to deal with the lack of scale on either side. I could sometimes take a bus to the ferry, walk to light rail and take light rail to the airport. But the bus only runs during commute times, so that impacts viable flight times, and the walk to the light rail got pretty sketchy in the past several years and light rail itself can be sketchy too. Most of my cars run fine any time of day, although peak traffic is annoying, and I'm dealing with lighting issues on one so I can't take it out unless I know I'll be home before dusk.
thebruce87m 2y ago
> much, much heavier https://thedriven.io/2024/05/03/are-evs-really-much-heavier-than-their-ice-equivalents/amp/ https://thedriven.io/2024/05/03/are-evs-really-much-heavier-... > full electric versions are only around 10% to 15% heavier than their direct ICE equivalent I don’t think “much, much” should be used when we are talking 10-15%. This will mislead people. There are outliers of course.

littlestymaar 2y ago

> You can load the cars with safety features, but it doesn't change the fact that these cars are very heavy Being heavy is actually a safety feature of sort (but just for the people inside the car, it increases overall fatality).

Gigachad 2y ago
Trees are anchored to the ground. Being heavier just reduces your ability to stop.
- rich_sasha 2y ago
  Maybe that's good when hitting a tree? Slower deceleration, less force.
  - jkaptur 2y ago
    I think they meant that it's more difficult to stop before beginning to impact the tree.
    - rich_sasha 2y ago
      Still. If I'm going to hit a tree, I'd rather drive a tank than a motorbike.
      - JasonSage 2y ago
        Cars have crumple zones which a motorbike does not. A lighter car requires less work from the crumple zone to decelerate the car into non-fatal territory than a heavy car.
- bastloing 2y ago
  Decreases your tendency to flip over. I'm astonished by all the dashcam videos out there showing collisions, usually the first thing an ice car does is flip over. Not EVs though.

dpats 2y ago

> In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. Do you have a source on that?

legitster 2y ago
> From 2016 to 2018 an average of 19,158 fatalities resulted from roadway departures, which is 51 percent of all traffic fatalities in the United States. https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD
- gamblor956 2y ago
  FTL: "FHWA defines a roadway departure (RwD) crash as a crash which occurs after a vehicle crosses an edge line or a center line, or otherwise leaves the traveled way. Another term our partners often use is lane departure, which is synonymous with RwD, since both include head-on collisions when a vehicle enters an opposing lane of traffic." Road departure fatalities are high because of head-on collisions, not because there is an epidemic of people crashing into trees along the side of the road. If you follow the links on the cited page, they clearly show that head-on crashes result in more fatalities than tree+utility pole crashes.

kevinqi 2y ago

Aside from the distracted driving part, which is real, there are two physical aspects of the model 3 that I find to be safety issues as well-- the two front windshield beams are thick and add a sort of blind spot, and the side mirrors don't give you great field of view.

nomel 2y ago
Same with my older Toyota. They stuffed airbags in them, which is nice, but I've had several times where an adult on a bike is completely obscured, with my passenger having to scream "stop!". After the second time, I now bob my head like a maniac to look around them. Can't wait for displays on pillars, to make them appear transparent.
- tzs 2y ago
  The pillars on my 2006 CR-V haven't been a problem. Did pillars get bigger on newer cars, or did Honda use smaller pillars, or what? They are wide enough that their horizontal angular width could be larger than the horizontal angular width of a pedestrian more than a couple or so meters away but due to their angle there is plenty of the pedestrian still visible. I spent a while just sitting in a busy parking lot watching people go by and seeing how their visibility changed and I couldn't find any situation where I'd have trouble seeing a pedestrian unless they were far enough away that there was no chance I'd hit them even if I never saw them.
- kevinqi 2y ago
  yeah I've had a similar experience with a bike and do the head bob thing now too. glad to know it's not just me
GuB-42 2y ago
It is a problem with most modern cars, and it is actually for safety reasons. These beams have to support the entire weight of the car in case it flips over in order to protect the occupants.
- MBCook 2y ago

akira2501 2y ago

> and loaded with features "Ludicrous mode." > the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. It's actually alcohol and drugs. Which is the reason those drivers find themselves in the trees.

doctorpangloss 2y ago
[flagged]
- mcculley 2y ago
  How is California special in that regard? Many states lack the infrastructure or density to allow for proper enjoyment of alcohol.
  - connicpu 2y ago
    Unless you're wealthy enough to live in the core of a major metropolitan area, it's all of the states.
  - aziaziazi 2y ago
    There also clear lack of alcohol enjoyment education. Gather at friends place and stay overnight, carpools and draw a sober Sam, don’t get overdrunk and drink water for the last 90 min of the party, etc… I do agree infras and density is a better option. But lack of infra doesn’t justify to drive drunk.
    - mcculley 2y ago
      I’m not justifying drunk driving. I asked how California is different from other states in this regard.
- mandymoorefan 2y ago
  North Carolina next question.
- rich_sasha 2y ago

SoftTalker 2y ago

What makes sense to me is the top 3 cars: Tesla - autopilot that really isn't, gets fooled in many situations, driver lulled into not paying attention, can't react quickly enough when the computer bails, and ends up driving into a bridge abutment at 75mph. Kia - cheap cars built to minimum safety standards driven by young people who aren't very experienced drivers. Buick - cars driven by geriatrics whose declines in vision and reaction speed probably should have resulted in their licenses being revoked five years ago but who still insist on driving themselves.

vikingerik 2y ago
I'd also venture that the profile of Tesla drivers is also a factor along with those other two brands. I'd be pretty sure that Tesla owners collectively drive more aggressively than the average car on the road. Teslas aren't being driven by soccer moms and careful grandmas.
- aziaziazi 2y ago
  Does the insurance cost vary between two cars almost identical in every relevant points but the brand? Not a rhetorical question.
- duderific 2y ago
  Lots of soccer moms driving Teslas in the Bay Area. Know several myself.
- buffington 2y ago
  Where I live, I'd estimate that a third of the passenger cars are Teslas. No data to back that up, but that's what I tend to see day to day. The diversity of drivers is significant enough to suggest that "all kinds of people" drive Teslas.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    A third? Wow. Where I am they are not exactly rare but uncommon enough that I still notice them when I see them. I see a few a week I'd guess. Pre-pandemic I knew one person who owned a Tesla. And now... I know two people who own a Tesla, but one of them lives in another country.

jvandonsel 2y ago

Simple solution. Cut down all the trees on the side of the road. You’re welcome.

Mountain_Skies 2y ago

>In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. A decade or so ago the Georgia Department of Transportation tried to do away with the trees between streets and sidewalks because of so many fatalities coming from collisions with trees. Clearing out an "automative recovery zone" as they called it likely would have saved lives of some people in vehicles but of course it would increase the danger to pedestrians, who might or might not be present at that moment. Lots of trade offs in these types of analysis and not all of them are always immediately obvious.

gamblor956 2y ago

In the US at least, the top killer of drivers are trees on the side of the road. This is false. Your cited link (https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD https://highways.dot.gov/safety/RwD) clearly demonstrates that head-on collisions cause more fatalities than tree+utility pole collisions combined.