Every time I see a movie from the 90s and older, and they show a parking lot, I get sad. Everyone used to drive reasonably sized sedans. Family vehicles were wagons. Fuck SUVs and trucks.
Saw a lady driving a truck which its hood was taller than my veloster and all I saw was knuckles. This old lady probably couldn’t even see the road.
Fuck these people and fuck the companies that make emLarge trucks like that should be like transports. Ya should have to take a special license course to even be able to own to prove you can drive it. 90% of truck owners can’t so they own the biggest POS to ensure their safety at everyone’s else’s safety.
I see A LOT of older people who can’t see over the dash. I bet they don’t know their seat raises vertically. their eyes line up with the top of the steering wheel, no way they’re paying attention enough to what’s going on beyond 15 feet, much less around them.
Bumper height needs to be standardized so they match up properly. One of the biggest safety issues is how modern SUV bumpers don’t align with cars bumper bars.
My Sequoia is like 2.5x the size of my Honda fit. If I ever hit my Honda while pulling into the driveway I’ll total it.
I fully agree with your statement.
Do you like your Sequoia? I have been thinking about trading in my Explorer for one. Or an Expedition.
Know this is a hate thread about SUV’s, but those of us with large families don’t have any other options.
I have a 2012 platinum it’s amazing. I get 12-15mpg…lol yea I have a 5 person family with the 7 seater Sequoia.
Maybe this is the point, but that might cause SUVs to be prohibitively unsafe, because their center of momentum would be so high relative to impact height. For example, if an SUV with one of these low bumpers hit a barrier, it would probably perform a front flip over it 😂
“MUH FREEDOM. FUCKIN COMMIES”
I can just see the pavement princess brigade seething because their next emotional support penismobile won’t be exaggerated anymore and they will actually be able to see pedestrians and cyclists.
I have conservative family members who deliberately go for the biggest SUV with the lowest gas mileage available just to “stick it to the government.” If the government told them that they couldn’t drive a small car, they’d be out there shopping for a small car. It’s incredibly childish.
Yeah, a lot of stupid culture war crap is now tied up into the car your own.
If people actually prioritized performance, handling, visability, cost to drive, and cabin features, then a LOT of people would probably be better off with a sedan.
If you don’t need the space, you can get so much more bang for your buck with a smaller car. The $10k more you spend on the larger form factor could go toward a nicer power train and cabin luxury features.
Most other countries I’ve been to, all the trades use these, and seem to have no problem getting projects done.
Japanese Kei trucks are pretty rad, but they don’t fly with US highway safety regulations. They’re meant for slower roads / slower collisions speeds.
That said, most American trucks do not need to be remotely as big as they are.
Good point.
Let’s ignore the lack of crush zones, air bags, seat belts, re-enforced door panels and cabin pillars, for a moment. (The lack of any safety features is why they are mostly illegal to operate on roads in the US.)
How far do you think that roller skate could pull my empty 24,000lbs tandem axle tilt bed trailer? Or even my 4000lbs trailer? On a highway at highway speeds.
It’s almost like that it isn’t the intended purpose of these vehicles… you don’t need 19ft long 10ft tall super duty ford f-250s and up to pull a 4klb trailer though… a 70s f150 half that size could do it just fine and modern engines in that size vehicle would be even better
Kei trucks and vans are the perfect vehicles for most jobs and most tradesman not hauling loads meant for real trucks not light truck frames
Most tradesmen DON’T use a 250 Super Duty unless they really need one. They prefer the standard 1/2 ton base models because they are cheaper and “good enough”.
Kei trucks, while they do have their place and uses in some cities, are NOT the “perfect vehicles” for most tradesmen in many parts of the world. They do not carry enough items and tools for most tradesmen to make all the repair calls they may need to do in one day. They often need to drive well over 100 miles a day to get to all the appointments they can have. And the design of the those little trucks are patently unsafe at highway speeds.
Vans are sometimes popular, but they are just weird looking trucks. And they can be difficult to access tools and items from. Requiring you to either unload a bunch of stuff to get at something or you need to crawl over everything.
Fair point. Though if they weren’t needing to go up against oversized trucks, it wouldn’t be as much of an issue.
Ya know it probably says something that the concept of “cabin luxury features” made we want to burn the inside of a car. Ill stick to my lack of cupholders in my 30 year old car thanks, but seriously when I see the interior of modern cars they make me want to rip into them with wire cutters. Bunch of useless crap like lane assist, cruise control, and addaptive road assist, powered stearing is the only luxury I need.
Fun fact I am only 24, I just am tech literate in the way that causes me to think 90% of technology is worthless crap that shouldve never been created and needs to be recycled.
Cruise control is hardly luxury, most cars have had it for a while
I’m almost 40 and a lot of my cars in my teens and 20s were from the '80s and '90s. Almost everything I’ve owned has had at least a rudimentary cruise control although there are some ('80s Bronco II, '95 Miata, early '90s 240sx, 99 Impreza Wagon) where it was broken or I just never used it.
All that said, I LOVE the radar controlled cruise control on my current vehicle. I’ve used it for at least 20,000 miles of driving at this point. Interstate, highway, city, you name it… Pretty much any time I want to maintain a steady speed over 28 and there’s not a lot of stop and go traffic. I hate thinking about life without it now (and I hate using standard cruise control without radar)!
Or a hatchback or a station wagon…
Oops, nobody makes station wagons anymore. We stopped making them because, uh, people stopped buying them. Yeah, that’s the ticket. People stopped buying them because we stopped making them.
Not to mention longer term cost of maintenance and insurance.
I had a student get just the worst giant diesel truck that was constantly breaking down so she could “stick it to the libs”.
Girl was 18. Future of the nation?
Ironic, considering how much gasoline is taxed.
Barely at all?
It depends on where, but it can be quite a bit. Typically goes towards road maintenance and whatnot.
They’ve been getting confused after Elon turned into a giant-ass bigot, so now some of them are considering Tesla.
Yeah, at some point we’re going to have to crank up gas prices
The whole chart is rather fascinating and eye opening: Vehicle visibility
Astounding. Hummer H2 beating the Sierra by 3m is incredible. A truck designed almost exclusively to express how selfish you are and it has better viability.
This chart is eye-opening…I always thought Hummers were made by…Hummer…
GM marketing. They purchased the hummer brand from AM General. OG Hummer (later renamed H1) was based on AM General’s military Humvee design, but released to the civilian market. H2 and H3 were designed by GM for mass marketing. Can be seen in the price. H1 nearly 10x more than H2 and H3.
Also, the H1 was 10x better for what it was designed for than the H2 and H3.
The H1 was not designed for commuting to work.
I’m not sure what it was designed for. It doesn’t have a lot of space for hauling compared to its size. It’s not great for offroading. It’s a plastic money extraction machine.
The original was designed to play military at home.it was not a pickup truck or a dedicated and modded offroad machine, and yes it was a money pit. But it was perfect for pretending with a civilian version of the vehicle manufacturrd on the same line as the real thing.
H2 and H3 models were just mediocre rebranded SUVs with hints of the original hummer body lines.
Thanks, embedding:
I’d be curious to see that chart for a Toyota Yaris. I drove one for a few years and it was almost unnerving how little hood it had.
Same here. Going from a 1990 VW Passat to a 2009 Yaris was wild.
An articulated quarry hauler is barely worse than a pick-up truck
‘murca
I will gladly trade my SUV in for a gently used M1
what if the M1 doesn’t have a touch screen though
good
touchscreens should be banned from vehicles
Only 20 gallons to the mile, not bad
That’s not to mention the optics.
#4 is the optic for the RWS. This cannot be used to aim the main gun, but it can be used as an alternate form of CITV, especially since it’s so damned high off the ground, it may be able to see over obstacles. Not as good as CITV in the thermal range, though.
That being said, some civilian vehicles are gonna have their own camera systems too, so…
Civilian vehicles should all have thermals and a night driving HUD. If I’m paying 30,000 dollars then they can damn well put some actual stuff in there. Headlights being weaponized isn’t something we have to tolerate.
Sorry, no can do, also cupholders are extra, best we can do is plastic hubcaps and a 10,000/6 month warranty.
Ugh. Too true. Cars would be 100% better if they weren’t a mass market necessity.
This is misleading because being higher up you can see much better further ahead, and over obstacles and barriers. Your special awareness is much better at distances that are relevant for avoiding collisions. If something is 1.5m away its too late anyway.
The angle is also incorrect because they are putting the eyes of the driver straight in line with the hood, which is not how its been in any vehicle I’ve ever driven, the head should be higher or further forward.
You don’t want to see “over” obstacles close to your vehicle when said obstacles are in fact human beings standing in front of your car.
At parking lot speeds, 1.5 meters is also not “too late,” and it certainly isn’t when you are at a standstill but need to determine if it is safe to move or if there is a small person in front of your vehicle, i.e. in the school pickup line, or in a parking lot, or your own driveway.
The origin of the line is at head height…
Also these vehicles gain in distant visibility at the expense of everyone else on the road, blocking their views.
Also, an astounding proportion of fatal pedestrian collisions happen at low-speed, close to home where these sightlines explicitly matter.
The best way to avoid getting into an accident is to see it long before you get there. But situational awareness is not something the vast majority of drivers actually practice or have…
It’s like a negative feedback loop I want an SUV because of a truck or another SUV hit me. I feel like I might be able to survive that but if I’m in my geometro, or a small compact car. I don’t think I’m coming out of that alive if a giant trucker or suv hit me And I know that’s not gonna change. They’re not gonna suddenly recall thousands of oversized pick up trucks those trucks are gonna be on the road for the next 10 to 15 years to come, even if something changes soon. It would take a while to phase them out.
I just want public high-speed rail everywhere 15 minutes cities please
They need to do that here too in Australia
If you’re driving a larger vehicle, you should be putting in more care.
But they don’t seem to here in Australia. They’ll park badly and put less effort into fixing it than a small sedan
It’s tiring that this is even still a thing
For the first time ever, manufacturers would be required to study the impact of test dummies hit outside of vehicles. The rules would likely change the design of what America drives permanently.
That’s all the article says about the actual rule changes. Based on this information alone, I know very little about what will actually change.
I feel like the NHTSA should do way more if they can and argue for limits on light truck sizes in their length, height, weight, and perhaps classification.
Well, for one thing, an M1 Abrams main battle tank has better front sightlines than most trucks on the road today.
And it isn’t even that much more dangerous to get hit by because of the giant flat-face front impact planes of the trucks. Used to be if you got hit by a car it would roll you up over the hood, now you just die.
I have to imagine that will impact the testing and design at least somewhat.
Edit: fixed the image link
Not sure about the second part, tanks are built to go over things. Their “negative slant” seems more likely to push things under than a car’s hood or a truck/SUV’s flat face.
Oh sure if you get run over by a tank you’re going under the treads and it’s lights out for you. No question. My point was though, with sedans or older smaller trucks, the point of impact would hit around waist level on most adults and you’d be thrown up and over the hood, which would bleed off a lot of the lethal impact damage. These days the full weight of the truck is going to hit you in the chest and shoulders and you’re not getting thrown anywhere but forward and under.
If you’re a child, you’re pretty screwed either way, but modern big trucks are way, way more dangerous in a frontal impact than they used to be just based on the shape of the things. That big flat face is like getting slammed directly into a wall at 80mph.
The other thing it mentioned was the “head-to-hood” test. AFAIK car manufacturers are only required to meet the collision safety requirements for collisions involving the same class of vehicle. Vehicles in different classes are not made to impact with each other, making, for instance, a sedan to pickup truck collision much more dangerous for the sedan driver. The only way they can still meet those safety requirements is to make the front of the SUVs and trucks much much smaller and probably lower.
Edit: I was thinking of the AP article about this.
For the first time ever, manufacturers would be required to study the impact of test dummies hit outside of vehicles
But that will reveal a LOT of corroborating information for what we know, which is how dangerous they are. It’s a good thing to have more data
I suspect the only “change” that will happen is a large amount of money changing hands so they don’t have to bother.
Double the price of petrol. That will make Americans desire small cars again.
Doesn’t matter, still need an SUV to fit the family. Not everyone here is living the SINK/DINK life.
Yay we will have the return of small trucks. These behemoths are good for towing and work, but not everyday driving.
Most of the behemoths aren’t even good as utilitary vehicles…
I’ve got a 15yo Renault Kangoo which could beat almost any oversized suburban pedestrian flattener in all metrics except price.
Hey buddy! Without a Ford F150 that’s taller than the average elementary school student and a box that can barely fit an average grocery store trip, how else am I supposed to tell people I have a tiny penis?
I want so much to ditch my Jeep Grand Cherokee for a truck (I drive to work once a week but pull a camper on the weekends), sadly a lot of them might not fit in my 1970’s garage.
As it is the US has no pedestrian safety standards at the federal level. I’m pretty sure if GM wanted to put out a truck with running chainsaws all over it then it would be perfectly legal as far as the NHTSA is concerned, although some state regulators might have a problem with it which is probably why it doesn’t happen in reality.
You’re in the process of describing a Cybertruck, just the misfitting panel ‘teeth’ aren’t rotating
GOP judge declaring NHTSA unconstitutional in 3… 2… 1…
Why do little cars have to withstand a collision with a huge truck but trucks just get bigger and bigger? The new Hummer is over 9,000lbs (4,090 kg)
At 60 MPH the Hummer EV has the same kinetic energy as a 1993 Honda Civic Hatchback going 120mph.
Holy shit
Trying to imagine my old Civic doing that …… holy shit that engine is winding up, glowing red hot, and I probably needed rocket boosters!
Forced induction will get your old Civic to 120mph in a jiffy. 😆
The only 93 Civic that hit 120mph was falling out of a plane at 35000’.
wtf in Europe that thing couldn’t be driven with a regular class B drivers license
Commercial license requirements for full sized trucks over a certain size and weight would be an excellent solution. In addition to the increased effort and cost to get one, commercial licenses are way easier to lose.
It depends on the state, but it usually is. It’s just very high, like a gvwr of 26k lbs.
Thing is, a CDL covers a bunch of stuff you really don’t need to know for something smaller than that, like air brakes. That said, some kind of graduated licensing is called for, here.
Motorcycles, too, while we’re at it. It’s insane that you can go through MSF and then immediately buy a literbike.
In ny US state motorcycles have a special motorcycle license. Maybe that would be a good starting point for a large vehicle permit that is more than a regilar license.
I agree. It’s felt weird each time I’ve rented a moving truck and was able to drive it myself. They are giant and I’m not used to driving something so big plus no visibility out of the rear of the vehicle. And on top of that, they are so massive that mistakes will hurt more and will be harder to notice while they are happening.
Though even normal licenses are too easy IMO. I haven’t been tested or trained on driving in decades. Most people don’t know how 2 way stop signs work, I’ve even had a cop wave me through when it was their right of way. The bar should be higher for getting and keeping a license and lower for losing it. And “but people need cars to get to work and such” addressed with better mass transportation and city planning.
The cybertruck is like 7k lbs.
Cars are getting a lot heavier now that EVs are becoming mainstream.
I mean they’re getting heavier, but not, like, whole number multiples heavier. An electric might be some 60% heavier than a comparable gas car. But the aforementioned hummer is more than 5 times heavier than even a heavy electric “utility vehicle”. That’s more than 400% heavier.
Regardless of truck size, I don’t think tractor trailers are going anywhere. Even if we made trucks smaller those would still be out there
Smaller trucks would still get in accidents though, and I imagine they would be less deadly
Man, if only we could separate freight from commuter traffic. Like, imagine if all those tractor trailers were on their own separate road, but make it out of, IDK, metal or something so it can withstand the weight better. You could even just have metal right under the wheels, to reduce costs. But what do I know, I’m just some pie in the sky nobody who doesn’t know what he’s talking about
Not to mention it would reduce all the underride crashes.
All these improved vehicle safety standards are generally for bumper-to-bumper collisions, not windshield-to-truck-bed. Frontline released a well-done 2023 episode on it. Highly recommend.
Edit: md link
Unless you’re going to run train tracks to every business in existence, freight will need to be moved using a semi at some point.
I think getting semis off the highway where they’re going 60-70 mph would make a big difference in highway safety though. And you could have less semis going from depots to stores if stores were smaller and more frequent, such that deliveries could be made via cargo vans rather than semis.
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.
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?
Driving a truck and not wanting children to die in accidents are in-fact not in conflict with each other.
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??
My dream car: An EV version of the 1955 Nash Metropolitan, seen here in this silly ad photo:
(Sorry, it’s hard to find pictures that give a true indication of the smallness of the car. Also, mine would be the red and white two tone variety.)
I just want a tiny electric hatchback, like, Honda fit sized, that has like 150+ mile range, and doesn’t use an outdated charging standard. I’ve considered a Nissan Leaf but they are still sticking with the chademo charger port, which is way less common.
I want a neat little 600cc kei car. I haven’t had any luck finding one.
If you want one that’s more than 25 years old, you can get those legally imported to the U.S. from Japan.
https://www.japan-partner.com/keicars.html
How stupid a law is that?
Some states won’t register kei trucks. They aren’t fast enough for freeway use or something like that.
Yes!
Even that was in an era or needlessly ego-boosting giant cars, going utilitarian to get a better product, better lives on average, even save resources - amazing (but with the cardinal sin of not being expensive enough and thus not as financially profitable).
For the same reason I would love to get a normally viable car of much smol.
Like a bit more modern version of Figaro:
Or a sexy mid-engine Autozam:
Kei cars are qewl!
