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Feds target SUV, truck size to save pedestrian lives — ‘one of the last frontiers of vehicle safety’
(chicago.suntimes.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2024
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Humans have quite literally invented cars that are better at killing people, especially children.
"I don't want children to die in accidents," say people as they drive huge masses of metal that might do just that.
I'll keep driving my PEV Minivan that has 360 cameras and I can see in front of me easily. I care about children's lives, unlike bubba in his lifted pickup truck. Why do you need a 4x4 lifted 3 feet and you live in the suburbs?
...you know what they say about guys with big lift...
Funny thing is, the people I know with large vehicles around here always bemoan how difficult it is to park, yet don't want to solve the obvious problem because twice a year they want to haul a fridge to the dump or pick up something from the home improvement store rather than have it delivered or rent a truck for an hour.
Counting the differences in cost (loan, gas, expected maintenance, insurance etc) it came out to where I would have to use the truck to haul something at least a very weekend possibly more to break even with a much newer car vs just renting a truck once or twice a year. Pickups are almost universally owned by people too stupid for middle school math imo.
I've made multuple older men incredibly upset by laughing at them when they say this
They get pissy and respond with "well you're some skinny long haired hippie who drives an EV so what do you know?" Which, yeah, all of that is true
But then I pull up the pictures of me 4x4ing in the rain and snow through fire smoke at work, pointing out that I drove a RAM3500 fully kitted out and lifted with a giant set of 4 110g tanks in the bed blocking anything other than my mirror and cam view, yet I only had issues parking when people didn't know how to stay in their own lines, and that I regularly had to squeeze my truck into areas with an inch or less of clearance in order to do my fucking job on a construction site, and I never hit anything but a rock (downhill, someone left a fucking rug out on some dirt in the rain and when my truck hit it I just slid til I hit the rock, company deemed me blameless)
They usually get flustered and change the subject p quick at that point
Penis issue
Your minivan is huge too...
Yes, but mini vans aren't lifted 20 ft off the ground with absurdly huge hoods for no apparent reason.
The reason trucks and SUVs are killing kids is because you can see a 4ft tall person that isn't standing 100 yards in front. These are the only vehicles with this problem.
Additionally, the raised and blunt hood height makes a full-body impact with no force dissipation much more likely, particularly for shorter people, where a more traditional hood shape allows a struck pedestrian to roll over the top and avert some of the force of the strike
But it's still blocking the view for us in normal sizes cars.
I don't know how many times I've had to hope for the best and carefully inch forwards/backwards when being next to a minivan/SUV/pickup. I've been close to being in an accident a number of times because of, well mostly, SUVs.
20-foot lifted vehicles would probably be considerably safer:
Hmmm... 🤔 Now that I think about it, maybe we should subsidize these lift kits to make this a self-solving problem
Driving a truck and not wanting children to die in accidents are in-fact not in conflict with each other. Or are you implying that truck drivers do want them to die?
Then design trucks which are not as deadly to pedestrians on impact.
Large vehicles are inherently going to be more dangerous to pedestrians than cars. If you make a truck the size of a car then it no longer functions in the role it was intented for. Why is everyone so focused on trucks anyway? The nose height on most vans is compareable and on semi trucks it double the height of a pickup yet nobody seems to be complaining about those.
The convenience of drivers is not more important than human lives.
Cars kill people every year. Trains and buses too. Ban those as well?
Thanks for the strawman, I can burn it for fuel when winter comes.
I see that you reference Sam Harris in a recent post. Thank you for making it clear that you're not worth listening to, bye.
Blocking is always a good way to avoid needing to explain the contradictions in one's reasoning.
No, but it clearly isn't important enough to them to influence their choice.
So you think people should not buy trucks because they might be in the 0.1% of truck drivers who end up killing a pedestrian with it? What about the people who have a legitimate use for the bed?
No, they shouldn't because even in vehicle to vehicle collisions SUVs kill 4 times more people than cars. Source
The people that have a legitimate use for such trucks should be required to apply for a exception and/or have a CDL.
Because in fact almost no one actually needs those trucks. Source [1]
Most people can use a trailer or rent a truck for the 1-2 times per year they need it.
[1] I work at a hardware store, specifically in the construction materials department. In 2 years of working there I had literally 1 person use their truck bed to haul a pallet of concrete bags, everyone else either used vans or a trailer. And just 2 weeks ago I had the first customer that used a pickup truck (Mercedes X-Class) to tow a 2.5t trailer to transport paving slabs.
So no, even trades people don't need those trucks, so why the fuck should a normal "civilian" have those and be 4 times as likely to kill someone??