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Maybe roads would last longer if we weren't all being forced to buy super heavy SUVs just so automakers can skirt emissions and fuel economy requirements. http
by stock_toaster 8mo ago
Maybe roads would last longer if we weren't all being forced to buy super heavy SUVs just so automakers can skirt emissions and fuel economy requirements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPm4de6-eTg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPm4de6-eTg
- atleastoptimal 8mo agoPeople buy SUV's because they want to avoid being injured in crashes (at the detriment of the other driver)
- Freedom2 8mo agoYet per capita, US vehicle occupants are more likely to be injured in general while on the road than Europeans. Perhaps the driving standards are just far too different.
- kgwgk 8mo agoThey also travel twice as much.
- atleastoptimal 8mo agoBecause US roads traffic control systems suck ALSO licenses are much easier to get, there is more of a tacit tolerance of drunk driving, and the lower rate of public transport makes more people forced to drive despite preferring not to, leading to less of a selective effect of drivers. We've consequentially paved over the issues (no pun intended) via creating a socioeconomic hierarchy of insulation from traffic injuries. Giant SUV's have become the mainstay of the upwardly mobile 30s suburbanite, who is immunized from the road hazards, collisions and dangers that would cripple sedans.
- NetMageSCW 8mo agoPer capita isn’t meaningful, try per mile.
- watwut 8mo agoIn a discussion about city design, per capita matters. That being said, EU is generally safer per km too.
- IncreasePosts 8mo agoIs that just because Americans spend a lot more time in their cars than Europeans do?
- watwut 8mo agoNo, per km Europeans are safer. Road design is safer, cars are safer.
- IncreasePosts 8mo agoI'm not sure it is so simple. Some states have death rates in line with western/northern Europe (eg massachusetts has 4 deaths per billion km, similar to Germany), but road design and cars driven in massachusetts are highly similar to states with a larger death rate(south carolina, looking at you).
- roger110 8mo agoTwo people crashing in big SUVs/trucks aren't really safer than two people crashing in smaller cars. As for the difference, my guess is the driving standards.
- dmix 8mo agoIn Canada people also buy SUVs and trucks because they handle the bad winter weathers better.
- vrosas 8mo agoThis is definitely true. I do not currently know a single woman who DOESN'T drive an SUV and the answer I've heard more than once is just that they feel safer. The problem is, they're not wrong. But it's a spiraling problem - more big cars make the roads less safe which prompts more people to buy big cars...
- kev009 8mo agoTypical meme. Passenger vehicles of any type cause negligible road wear. The weight of a sedan (say, 4000lbs) versus a light truck (say, 6000lbs) is just not significant, further the ground pressure will be close due to tire sizing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_pressure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_pressure) Road wear is a power law, and heavy trucks cause the wear https://blog.ucs.org/dave-cooke/trucks-cause-the-lions-share-of-road-damage-and-their-industry-wants-you-to-keep-paying-for-it/ https://blog.ucs.org/dave-cooke/trucks-cause-the-lions-share...
- bubblewand 8mo agoCorrect, one of those “fun facts” of public policy is that (at least in the US) taxes and other fees, including on fuel, paid by heavy commercial trucks don’t come anywhere near paying for the damage they do to roads. The rest of us subsidize shipping-by-road with our taxes. (Whether this is a good idea or not is debatable, but it’s the way things work right now and the fact that we subsidize truck shipping to the tune of a large amount of money is not widely known)
- thfuran 8mo agoI don’t think SUV vs car makes a meaningful difference when e.g. delivery vans and garbage trucks exist.
- DANmode 8mo agoRoads don’t get worn all at once.
- csto12 8mo agoThe average American wants a big SUV/Truck
- SimianSci 8mo agoThis is not supported by good data, Car manufacturers are pushing to make bigger larger vehicles because they require very little additional manufacturing overhead over smaller vehicles and the manufacturers are able to sell them at higher prices. What people want are Inexpensive vehicles, not necessarily larger ones. American car manufacturers have been actively suppressing cheaper smaller vehicles for their own benefit.
- sokoloff 8mo agoIsn't "able to sell them at higher prices" a consequence of and an indicator of the demand by buyers? Surely, if buyers didn't want these vehicles, makers couldn't sell them at high prices, right?
- hn_acc1 8mo agoThat's where advertising comes in..
- bmitc 8mo ago> This is not supported by good data It's supported by sales data.
- mvdtnz 8mo agoThe data is all around you. Look around. The revealed preference is big dumb expensive utes.
- IAmBroom 8mo ago"Forced"???
- el_nahual 8mo agoFor people that don't watch the video (I don't even know if this is in the video): road wear is a function of axle weight to the fourth power. [0] That means a 6,000lb escalade creates 3x the road wear than a 4,500 wagoneer from 1990. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law
- GorbachevyChase 8mo agoThis model is the basis of the 1993 AASHTO guide on a flexible pavement design, which is not the state of the art, but is still commonly used. This is why pavement design is mostly controlled by commercial traffic. For estimation purposes, I would not even consider the load of passenger vehicles in a flexible, pavement design.
- slaw 8mo agoone garbage truck - 40,000 pounds wears road 2000x than escalade.
- hnav 8mo agoI only need the garbage truck to do a run for me and a couple hundred others once a week. My Escalade is transporting me and maybe 1 other person on average 7 days a week.
- renjimen 8mo agoWe can't do without garbage trucks though
- jazzyjackson 8mo ago- have less garbage - collect garbage more frequently in smaller trucks taiwan has very cute small garbage trucks and they have a ice-cream-truck like song signalling for people to bring whatever trashbags they have out to the truck, so you don't even have piles of garbage outside for days waiting for the weekly truck. quite nice.
- bigbadfeline 8mo ago> Maybe roads would last longer if we weren't all being forced to buy super heavy SUVs Maybe not. Due to battery weight, EVs are super heavy even if they aren't SUVs, so are delivery trucks without which an urban community cannot and will not exist. Urban roads should be able to handle the weight even if everyone converted to EVs.
- deepsun 8mo agoEven EV weight is tiny compared to haul trucks. Yes they have multiple axles (hence "18-wheelers"), but even then pressure on the road surface is much greater still.
- nine_k 8mo agoThis has little to do with EVs, and much more to do with the idea that whoever brings a heavier vehicle to collision, wins (and lives). Hence the propensity to drive truck-sized SUVs and actual F-150s with just the driver, and the light load, but the pleasant feeling of safety. Who's gonna survive in an incident of road rage gone bad, a Ford Explorer or a Fiat 500? Coming back to the EVs, a small EV is a possibility, because it takes less power to move a lighter and smaller car. But would it sell on the US market?
- qball 8mo ago>it takes less power to move a lighter and smaller car A smaller car has less space for battery than an SUV. Because batteries are extremely heavy, that smaller car needs to be overbuilt compared to its gasoline counterpart, which further reduces room for battery. Then, because safety standards are harder to meet with small cars, the smaller car needs to be overbuilt even more. This means that you get cars that only have half the range a gasoline-powered car does, and the gas powered car recharges an order of magnitude faster than the EV does. Oh yeah, and the people who buy smaller cars like this tend to live in places where there's no charging other than going to a gas station anyway. It wouldn't sell on the US market because better alternatives exist. It could sell on the Chinese market because there are no better alternatives.
- roger110 8mo ago
- tjwebbnorfolk 8mo agoA lot of EVs are heavier than SUVs... but don't let facts get in the way of your crusade.
- unethical_ban 8mo agoInstead of assuming bad faith and resorting to insults, simply make the point. EVs can cause road damage too, yes. I would reply that pound for pound EVs create far fewer issues in other categories than its weight-equivalent ICE vehicle, and that to an extent that weight is justified for the urban environment far more than a 2025 Chevy Duramax.
- rootusrootus 8mo agoEVs tend to be about 10% heavier, like for like.
- Rebelgecko 8mo agoMost EVs are SUVs
- deepsun 8mo agoI've heard that cars have negligible impact on roads. 99% damage comes from heavy haul trucks, especially those who violate weight restrictions. By the way, I've never seen SCALES OPEN sign for the trucks, it's always SCALES CLOSED, or maybe I'm just extremely unlucky.
- dralley 8mo agoThe damage scales with weight. Cars cause less damage because they are lighter. Heavier cars still cause greater impact.
- ericd 8mo agoIt’s extremely super linear, supposedly 4th power of axle weight. So it doesn’t make sense to argue over the relative size of mice when there are elephants around.
- gizmo686 8mo agoDamage scales with the 4th power of weight. From what I can find, the standard weight limit for a truck in 20 tons per axle (less when multiple axles are close together). In contrast, the average weight for a car is a bit under 4 tons (even for SUVs). Even a pickup truck is under 5.4 tons. Since these have 2 axles, that comes out to every class except loaded freight trucks having under 2.7 tons per axle on average. So a freight truck acting at the legal limit (without tandem axles) would be over 7.4 times as heavy per axle as a passenger pickup truck. Applying the 4th power law, this means a single maximally loaded truck causes about 3000 times (300,000%) as much damage as an average pickup truck; and 10,000 times (1,000,000%) as much as an average SUV. In contrast, the difference in damage caused by an average SUV and an average sedan is only about 40% https://www.autoinsurance.com/guide/average-car-weight/ https://www.autoinsurance.com/guide/average-car-weight/
- GorbachevyChase 8mo agoI designed highways. This is correct, and this is why weight restrictions exist. Noncompliance is not that much of an issue, and there are occasional permitted loads anyway when there’s a need to haul industrial equipment or unusually large objects. The most important thing to remember about flexible, pavement lifespan is that asphaltic pavements are not designed to last forever. The asphalt binder will eventually oxidize and become brittle even with no traffic. These surfaces are meant to be consumable bearing services that last for 10 or 20 years and then have to be removed and or overlaid.
- trollbridge 8mo agoPeople in cities generally want deliveries of goods, which requires heavy trucks.
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- rudhdb773b 8mo agoHeavy trucks aren't required for the vast majority of residential deliveries. If you order anything in Bangkok, even say a refrigerator or a king size mattress, it will almost always be delivered by a modestly sized pickup truck (with a high roof covering the bed).
- doug_durham 8mo agoNo one is "forcing" anyone to buy a "super heavy SUV. Make a better argument.
- duped 8mo agoLast time I bought a car, I was replacing my 2010 CRV. If I wanted to purchase a subcompact SUV or hatchback sedan that was smaller and more fuel efficient I would have needed to wait at least six months. Economic realities do force decision making.
- nxm 8mo agoThat's not the full story. I presume it was some Toyota, which are in high demand. Plenty of small size alternatives are available from other brands with 0 wait time.
- duped 8mo agoThis was spread across multiple makes and models. The car I wound up with is larger than I would like, but you're right, it was in stock. Because the dealers stock what people want and lead times (at the time) were atrocious.
- doug_durham 8mo agoI could walk in to any number of dealers and purchase what you are describing tonight. I have an excellent electric SUV that I walked into a dealer an purchased.
- duped 8mo agoGood for you! I hate this trend on Hacker News where you share an anecdote and get replies calling you a liar. Cool?
- DANmode 8mo agoSo buy an SUV, or accept a huge hit in reliability driving a different brand? Now who’s leaving out part of the story?! :]
- slicktux 8mo agoI think another factor of road wear is better handling cars. People are able to drive more aggressively and accelerate more efficiently then ever before. Taking tight turns at high speeds or accelerating from dead stop does wear out roads more due to higher traction from driving behavior and characteristics…
- cyberrock 8mo agoEven if it were caused by passenger cars, the skyrocketing brightness of lights at sedan height probably push more people to buy large cars than this. In a just world, cars with ridiculously bright lights would be crushed in a monster car rally. Alas the cops don't even pull them over.
- roger110 8mo agoThis is the sole reason I've always hated Teslas. Didn't care that they're EV and new and have stereotypes about the drivers, just that the lights are way brighter. Or sometimes pointed further up out of the factory for some reason.
- paradox460 8mo agoThe cops are some of the worst offenders. Drive past an accident and the blue lights are so bright you'll have after images for hours
- tokioyoyo 8mo agoThe one thing I noticed in NA is that it takes ages to rebuild a road. I have close to zero experience in road construction, but a bit weird to see how they can repave a km stretch of a road here in Tokyo within a week or two, but it took months in other cities i've lived in. Maybe they do a lot of extra work over night over here in Tokyo, and it just goes faster? Or it's a very systematic thing and part of the maintenance schedules, so it doesn't really go that bad?
- monero-xmr 8mo agoHmmm probably the only thing I’ve consistently noticed around the US is they can pave highways and roads very quickly. That’s the American skill: tons of sprawl and highways. You may have been confusing road repaving with gas or water pipe replacement
- roger110 8mo agoHow are we being forced to buy SUVs? There are plenty of regular cars for sale.
- ponector 8mo agoAre you really forced to buy super heavy suv? Why can't you buy a Corolla? Or even a Mini Cooper?