4 ms·

I get it. My wife drives a big SUV. She is a small lady, and says the car let's her see the road better and overall feel more safe. Back when SUV's started t

by RajT88 1y ago

I get it. My wife drives a big SUV. She is a small lady, and says the car let's her see the road better and overall feel more safe. Back when SUV's started to get popular, this was a trend they noticed as well. Back then, it was met with a lot of guffaws about yuppie housewives and all that. (This was before the term Karen had been coined)

QuercusMax 1y ago
But she's making everyone else less safe by driving in her tank-mobile. Those are much more deadly to pedestrians, cyclists, and those in smaller vehicles.
- kccqzy 1y ago
  Some people are selfish. It's not illegal to be selfish.
  - QuercusMax 1y ago
    It can be morally wrong, however.
    - kccqzy 1y ago
      That's a problem of the legislators: identifying which immoral activities should be made illegal.
      - QuercusMax 1y ago
        You don't think that we as individuals have any moral choices to make, and we should defer to legislation? That's certainly a view, but I don't think it's the majority view.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  And for every comment screeching about pedestrians and rollover safety there's another one screeching about occupant safety. You can't really fault people for picking the one that benefits them when confronted with roughly equal screeching in both directions.
  - RajT88 1y ago
    Exactly what I was getting at. There are several ways to view the story. Another commenter mentioned failing to design cars for women (totally fair! Volvo famously had a botched attempt at this) What I have come to appreciate is how vulnerable women feel in the world. It is hard to appreciate how that plays into car choice if you are a man. Most men will never be able to understand, imo.
    - asdff 1y ago
      Only 20 years ago used to be the "hairdresser car" meant a tiny little sporty coupe or convertible like a miata. I guess the marketing changed and cultivated a new generation with a new mindset.
      - potato3732842 1y ago
        20yr ago was 2005 and the "hairdresser and nurse" demographic were all driving Jeep Libertys.
    - QuercusMax 1y ago
      Why does designing cars for women mean we need to turn them into main battle tanks? That's a false dichotomy. Women in cars are just as vulnerable as men in cars, just as female pedestrians are just as vulnerable as male pedestrians.
      - uzj100 1y ago
        For a while, women in cars were more vulnerable than men in cars, in part because crash test dummies were sized to typical male proportions, and cars are built to pass crash tests rather than be as safe as possible for all occupants while still passing crash tests. This sometimes led to things like airbags being placed in locations that worked great for average height men but not as well for average height women. I don't know if it's fair to say that women in cars are just as vulnerable as men in cars, the same goes for the pedestrian argument.
- autoexec 1y ago
  It's also an arms race where everyone buys bigger cars to see over all the other giant cars on the road. SUVs have been shown many times to be less safe, even for their drivers, but they give a feeling of safety which matters more than actual safety to buyers.
mschuster91 1y ago
> She is a small lady So, yet another case of cars not being designed for women (for those that don't get what I'm going on about - crash test dummies are modeled after men, leading to significantly worse crash outcomes for women [1])... it's infuriating. Even a "small" BMW i3, a car one might think to be suitable for people of lower height - my wife tried out one at carsharing, and even despite the seat being all up front, she was barely able to drive the thing. The Mercedes Sprinter we rented for our last moves? Once she understood how the dimensions of that thing worked, absolutely easy going. [1] https://apnews.com/article/nhtsa-female-crash-dummies-vehicle-safety-tests-ff29ea47e58f2325ddbe6c7930748d63 https://apnews.com/article/nhtsa-female-crash-dummies-vehicl...
- somenameforme 1y ago
  I'm curious about what the peak potential is and how close (or far) we are from there, because even if all things were 100% equal somehow, in a serious crash women will always fair significantly worse due to less musculature, lower bone density, thinner bones, and so on.
  - mschuster91 1y ago
    Well at the moment we don't even try, so any improvement will have massive impact.
jajko 1y ago
I don't think you get it. And also this is an universal response from all women I ever talked about exactly this topic (and several guys too who had no idea about cars in general but knew about those famous football players or other celebrities who had suvs so they also needed one). The root cause is plain and simple - your wife just needs to learn to drive better, then she wouldn't be scared regardless of her seating position. No amount of high position can compensate for overall crappy driving style and corresponding fear of driving and thus the 'need' for high SUVs. To keep her distance from car in front of her (which is basically why she feels the need to be sitting so high so she can anticipate braking earlier), and quick reflexes on the brake while 100% focusing on situation around her (which she should have anyway since there are other bad situations where higher positions doesn't give any advantage, in contrary). I went the other way - very low-positioned bmws, with correspondingly much better and quicker handling, of course much lower consumption and much more rolling resistance. Its wagon so trunk space is massive and if not enough I can put on biggest Thule roof rack and still fit in our garage and low entry points like store garages (1.9m is the limit with it, never saw entry limiter lower than that). My wife learned to drive properly over time and has exactly same opinion, aka suv never ever because why. Suvs and variants, at least those who don't go offroad (so most of them) should be reserved for physically challenged people due to easier entry/exit to/from vehicle. And that's about it for real objective advantages, the rest are just emotions which adults should manage to their advantage, not the opposite.
- fragmede 1y ago
  It doesn't matter how good a driver I, or your wife, or any woman, or any man is. That drunk driver who's also texting and just had a stroke and passed out from fentanyl could plow into you while you're innocently stopped at a stop light and you're being as defensive as possible. I don't see any way to change that calculus for the paranoid, unfortunately.
  - Mawr 1y ago
    True, but false. Accidents that you can do nothing about are vanishingly rare. Even the situation you bring up is not one of them. When stopped/stopping you should be checking your mirrors to make sure the car behind you is at least slowing down. On the other hand, the parent brings up a great example - following distance from the car in front. One of the most basic concepts of operating any vehicle and his wife is apparently incapable of applying it. The overall point holds - people are irrationally worried about the 0.0000001% edge cases they can do nothing about anyway instead of trying to improve their chances in the 99.999999% of cases where it's their actions that matter.

by RajT88 1y ago

QuercusMax 1y ago

But she's making everyone else less safe by driving in her tank-mobile. Those are much more deadly to pedestrians, cyclists, and those in smaller vehicles.

kccqzy 1y ago
Some people are selfish. It's not illegal to be selfish.
- QuercusMax 1y ago
  It can be morally wrong, however.
  - kccqzy 1y ago
    That's a problem of the legislators: identifying which immoral activities should be made illegal.
    - QuercusMax 1y ago
      You don't think that we as individuals have any moral choices to make, and we should defer to legislation? That's certainly a view, but I don't think it's the majority view.
potato3732842 1y ago
And for every comment screeching about pedestrians and rollover safety there's another one screeching about occupant safety. You can't really fault people for picking the one that benefits them when confronted with roughly equal screeching in both directions.
- RajT88 1y ago
  Exactly what I was getting at. There are several ways to view the story. Another commenter mentioned failing to design cars for women (totally fair! Volvo famously had a botched attempt at this) What I have come to appreciate is how vulnerable women feel in the world. It is hard to appreciate how that plays into car choice if you are a man. Most men will never be able to understand, imo.
  - asdff 1y ago
    Only 20 years ago used to be the "hairdresser car" meant a tiny little sporty coupe or convertible like a miata. I guess the marketing changed and cultivated a new generation with a new mindset.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      20yr ago was 2005 and the "hairdresser and nurse" demographic were all driving Jeep Libertys.
  - QuercusMax 1y ago
    Why does designing cars for women mean we need to turn them into main battle tanks? That's a false dichotomy. Women in cars are just as vulnerable as men in cars, just as female pedestrians are just as vulnerable as male pedestrians.
    - uzj100 1y ago
      For a while, women in cars were more vulnerable than men in cars, in part because crash test dummies were sized to typical male proportions, and cars are built to pass crash tests rather than be as safe as possible for all occupants while still passing crash tests. This sometimes led to things like airbags being placed in locations that worked great for average height men but not as well for average height women. I don't know if it's fair to say that women in cars are just as vulnerable as men in cars, the same goes for the pedestrian argument.
autoexec 1y ago
It's also an arms race where everyone buys bigger cars to see over all the other giant cars on the road. SUVs have been shown many times to be less safe, even for their drivers, but they give a feeling of safety which matters more than actual safety to buyers.

mschuster91 1y ago

> She is a small lady So, yet another case of cars not being designed for women (for those that don't get what I'm going on about - crash test dummies are modeled after men, leading to significantly worse crash outcomes for women [1])... it's infuriating. Even a "small" BMW i3, a car one might think to be suitable for people of lower height - my wife tried out one at carsharing, and even despite the seat being all up front, she was barely able to drive the thing. The Mercedes Sprinter we rented for our last moves? Once she understood how the dimensions of that thing worked, absolutely easy going. [1] https://apnews.com/article/nhtsa-female-crash-dummies-vehicle-safety-tests-ff29ea47e58f2325ddbe6c7930748d63 https://apnews.com/article/nhtsa-female-crash-dummies-vehicl...

somenameforme 1y ago
I'm curious about what the peak potential is and how close (or far) we are from there, because even if all things were 100% equal somehow, in a serious crash women will always fair significantly worse due to less musculature, lower bone density, thinner bones, and so on.
- mschuster91 1y ago
  Well at the moment we don't even try, so any improvement will have massive impact.

jajko 1y ago

I don't think you get it. And also this is an universal response from all women I ever talked about exactly this topic (and several guys too who had no idea about cars in general but knew about those famous football players or other celebrities who had suvs so they also needed one). The root cause is plain and simple - your wife just needs to learn to drive better, then she wouldn't be scared regardless of her seating position. No amount of high position can compensate for overall crappy driving style and corresponding fear of driving and thus the 'need' for high SUVs. To keep her distance from car in front of her (which is basically why she feels the need to be sitting so high so she can anticipate braking earlier), and quick reflexes on the brake while 100% focusing on situation around her (which she should have anyway since there are other bad situations where higher positions doesn't give any advantage, in contrary). I went the other way - very low-positioned bmws, with correspondingly much better and quicker handling, of course much lower consumption and much more rolling resistance. Its wagon so trunk space is massive and if not enough I can put on biggest Thule roof rack and still fit in our garage and low entry points like store garages (1.9m is the limit with it, never saw entry limiter lower than that). My wife learned to drive properly over time and has exactly same opinion, aka suv never ever because why. Suvs and variants, at least those who don't go offroad (so most of them) should be reserved for physically challenged people due to easier entry/exit to/from vehicle. And that's about it for real objective advantages, the rest are just emotions which adults should manage to their advantage, not the opposite.

fragmede 1y ago
It doesn't matter how good a driver I, or your wife, or any woman, or any man is. That drunk driver who's also texting and just had a stroke and passed out from fentanyl could plow into you while you're innocently stopped at a stop light and you're being as defensive as possible. I don't see any way to change that calculus for the paranoid, unfortunately.
- Mawr 1y ago
  True, but false. Accidents that you can do nothing about are vanishingly rare. Even the situation you bring up is not one of them. When stopped/stopping you should be checking your mirrors to make sure the car behind you is at least slowing down. On the other hand, the parent brings up a great example - following distance from the car in front. One of the most basic concepts of operating any vehicle and his wife is apparently incapable of applying it. The overall point holds - people are irrationally worried about the 0.0000001% edge cases they can do nothing about anyway instead of trying to improve their chances in the 99.999999% of cases where it's their actions that matter.